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[SOURCE: https://www.fast.ai/posts/2018-10-18-aws-datasets.html] | [TOKENS: 914] |
The new fast.ai research datasets collection, on AWS Open Data Jeremy Howard (fast.ai) and Jed Sundwall (Open Data Global Lead, AWS) October 16, 2018 On this page In machine learning and deep learning we can’t do anything without data. So the people that create datasets for us to train our models are the (often under-appreciated) heroes. Some of the most useful and important datasets are those that become important “academic baselines”; that is, datasets that are widely studied by researchers and used to compare algorithmic changes. Some of these become household names (at least, among households that train models!), such as MNIST, CIFAR 10, and Imagenet. We all owe a debt of gratitude to those kind folks who have made datasets available for the research community. So fast.ai and the AWS Public Dataset Program have teamed up to try to give back a little: we’ve made some of the most important of these datasets available in a single place, using standard formats, on reliable and fast infrastructure. For a full list and links see the fast.ai datasets page. fast.ai uses these datasets in the Deep Learning for Coders courses, because they provide great examples of the kind of data that students are likely to encounter, and the academic literature has many examples of model results using these datasets which students can compare their work to. If you use any of these datasets in your research, please show your gratitude by citing the original paper (we’ve provided the appropriate citation link below for each), and if you use them as part of a commercial or educational project, consider adding a note of thanks and a link to the dataset. Dataset example: the French/English parallel corpus One of the lessons that gets the most “wow” feedback from fast.ai students is when we study neural machine translation. It seems like magic when we can teach a model to translate from French to English, even if we can’t speak both languages ourselves! But it’s not magic; the key is the wonderful dataset that we leverage in this lesson: the French/English parallel text corpus prepared back in 2009 by Professor Chris Callison-Burch of the University of Pennsylvania. This dataset contains over 20 million sentence pairs in French and English. He built the dataset in a really clever way: by crawling millions of Canadian web pages (which are often multi-lingual) and then using a set of simple heuristics to transform French URLs onto English URLs. The dataset is particularly important for researchers since it is used in the most important annual competition for benchmarking machine translation models. Here’s some examples of the sentence pairs that our translation models can learn from: Often considered the oldest science, it was born of our amazement at the sky and our need to question Astronomy is the science of space beyond Earth’s atmosphere. | Souvent considérée comme la plus ancienne des sciences, elle découle de notre étonnement et de nos questionnements envers le ciel L’astronomie est la science qui étudie l’Univers au-delà de l’atmosphère terrestre. | The name is derived from the Greek root astron for star, and nomos for arrangement or law. | Son nom vient du grec astron, qui veut dire étoile et nomos, qui veut dire loi. | Astronomy is concerned with celestial objects and phenomena – like stars, planets, comets and galaxies – as well as the large-scale properties of the Universe, also known as “The Big Picture”. | Elle s’intéresse à des objets et des phénomènes tels que les étoiles, les planètes, les comètes, les galaxies et les propriétés de l’Univers à grande échelle. | So what’s Professor Callison-Burch doing now? When we reached out to him to check some details for his dataset, he told us he’s now preparing the University of Pennsylvania’s new AI course; and part of his preparation: watching the videos at course.fast.ai! It’s a small world indeed… The dataset collection The following categories are currently included in the collection: The datasets are all stored in the same tgz format, and (where appropriate) the contents have been converted into standard formats, suitable for import into most machine learning and deep learning software. For examples of using the datasets to build practical deep learning models, keep an eye on the fast.ai blog where many tutorials will be posted soon. |
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[SOURCE: https://www.fast.ai/posts/2018-10-02-fastai-ai.html] | [TOKENS: 3629] |
fastai v1 for PyTorch: Fast and accurate neural nets using modern best practices Jeremy Howard October 2, 2018 On this page Note from Jeremy: Want to learn more? Listen to me discuss fastai with Sam Charrington in this in-depth interview. Summary Today fast.ai is releasing v1 of a new free open source library for deep learning, called fastai. The library sits on top of PyTorch v1 (released today in preview), and provides a single consistent API to the most important deep learning applications and data types. fast.ai’s recent research breakthroughs are embedded in the software, resulting in significantly improved accuracy and speed over other deep learning libraries, whilst requiring dramatically less code. You can download it today from conda, pip, or GitHub or use it on Google Cloud Platform. AWS support is coming soon. About fast.ai fast.ai’s mission is to make the power of state of the art deep learning available to anyone. In order to make that happen, we do three things: Research how to apply state of the art deep learning to practical problems quickly and reliably Build software to make state of the art deep learning as easy to use as possible, whilst remaining easy to customize for researchers wanting to explore hypotheses Teach courses so that as many people as possible can use the research results and software You may well already be familiar with our courses. Hundreds of thousands of people have already taken our Practical Deep Learning for Coders course, and many alumni are now doing amazing work with their new skills, at organizations like Google Brain, OpenAI, and Github. (Many of them now actively contribute to our busy deep learning practitioner discussion forums, along with other members of the wider deep learning community.) You may also have heard about some of our recent research breakthroughs (with help from our students and collaborators!), including breaking deep learning speed records and achieving a new state of the art in text classification. The new fastai library So that covers the research and teaching parts of the three listed areas—but what about software? Today we’re releasing v1.0 of our new fastai deep learning library, which has been under development for the last 18 months. fastai sits on top of PyTorch, which provides the foundation for our work. When we announced the initial development of fastai over one year ago, we described many of the advantages that PyTorch provides us. For instance, we talked about how we could “use all of the flexibility and capability of regular python code to build and train neural networks”, and “we were able to tackle a much wider range of problems”. The PyTorch team has been very supportive throughout fastai’s development, including contributing critical performance optimizations that have enabled key functionality in our software. fastai is the first deep learning library to provide a single consistent interface to all the most commonly used deep learning applications for vision, text, tabular data, time series, and collaborative filtering. This is important for practitioners, because it means if you’ve learned to create practical computer vision models with fastai, then you can use the same approach to create natural language processing (NLP) models, or any of the other types of model we support. Google Cloud Platform are making fastai v1 available to all their customers from today in an experimental Deep Learning image for Google Compute Engine, including ready-to-run notebooks and pre-installed datasets. To use it, simply head over to Deep Learning images page on Google Cloud Marketplace and setup configuration for your instance, set framework to PyTorch 1.0RC and click “deploy”. That’s it, you now have the VM with Jupyter Lab, PyTorch 1.0 and fastai on it! Read more about how you can use the images in this post from Google’s Viacheslav Kovalevskyi. And if you want to use fastai in a GPU-powered Jupyter Notebook, it’s now a single click away thanks to fastai support on Salamander, also released today. Good news too from Bratin Saha, VP, Amazon Web Services: “To support fast.ai’s mission to make the power of deep learning available at scale, the fastai library will soon be available in the AWS Deep Learning AMIs and Amazon SageMaker”. And we’re very grateful for the enthusiasm from Microsoft’s AI CTO, Joseph Sirosh, who said “At Microsoft, we have an ambitious goal to make AI accessible and valuable to every organization. We are happy to see Fast.AI helping democratize deep learning at scale and leveraging the power of the cloud.” Early users fast.ai are enthusiastic users of Github’s collaboration tools, and many of the Github team work with fast.ai tools too - even the CEO of Github studies deep learning using our courses! Hamel Husain, a Senior Machine Learning Scientist at Github who has been studying deep learning through fast.ai for the last two years, says: “The fast.ai course has been taken by data scientists and executives at Github alike ushering in a new age of data literacy at GitHub. It gave data scientists at GitHub the confidence to tackle state of the art problems in machine learning, which were previously believed to be only accessible to large companies or folks with PhDs.” Husain and his colleague Ho-Hsiang Wu recently released a new experimental tool for semantic code search, which allows Github users to find useful code snippets using questions written in plain English. In a blog post announcing the tool, they describe how they switched from Google’s Tensorflow Hub to fastai, because it “gave us easy access to state of the art architectures such as AWD LSTMs, and techniques such as cyclical learning rates with random restarts”. Husain has been using a pre-release version of the fastai library for the last 12 months. He told us: “I choose fast.ai because of its modularity, high level apis that implemented state of the art techniques, and innovations that reduce the need for tons of compute but with the same performance characteristics. The semantic code search demo is only the tip of the iceberg, as folks in sales, marketing, fraud are currently leveraging the power of fastai to bring transformative change to their business areas.” One student that stood out in our last fast.ai deep learning course was Christine McLeavey Payne, who had already had a fascinating journey as an award-winning classical pianist with an SF Symphony chamber group, a high performance computing expert in the finance world, and a neuroscience and medical researcher at Stanford. Her journey has only gotten more interesting since, and today she is a Research Fellow at the famous OpenAI research lab. In her most recent OpenAI project, she used fastai to help her create Clara: A Neural Net Music Generator. Here is some of her generated chamber music. Christine says: “The fastai library is an amazing resource. Even when I was just starting in deep learning, it was easy to get a fastai model up and running in only a few lines of code. At that point, I didn’t understand the state-of-the-art techniques happening under the hood, but still they worked, meaning my models trained faster, and reached significantly better accuracy.” Christine has even created a human or computer quiz that you can try for yourself; see if you can figure which pieces were generated by her algorithm! Clara is closely based on work she did on language modeling for one of her fast.ai student projects, and leverages the fastai library’s support for recent advances in natural language processing. Christine told us: “It’s only more recently that I appreciate just how important these details are, and how much work the fastai library saves me. It took me just under two weeks to get this music generation project up and getting great initial results. I’m certain that speed couldn’t have been possible without fastai.” We think that Clara is a great example of the expressive power of deep learning—in this case, a model designed to generate and classify text has been used to generate music, with relatively few modifications. “I took a fastai Language Model almost exactly (very slight changes in sampling the generation) and experimented with ways to write out the music in either a ”notewise” or ”chordwise” encoding” she wrote on Twitter. The result was a crowd favorite, with Vanessa M Garcia, a Senior Researcher at IBM Watson, declaring it her top choice at OpenAI’s Demo Day. Architect and Investor Miguel Pérez Michaus has been using a pre-release version of fastai to research a system for art experiments that he calls Style Reversion. This is definitely a case where a picture tells a thousand words, so rather than try to explain what it does, I’ll let you see for yourself: Pérez Michaus says he likes designing with fastai because “I know that it can get me where [Google’s Tensorflow library] Keras can not, for example, whenever something ‘not standard’ has to be achieved”. As an early adopter, he’s seen the development of the library over the last 12 months: “I was lucky enough to see alpha version of fastai evolving, and even back then its power and flexibility was evident. Additionally, it was fully usable for people like myself, with domain knowledge but no formal Computer Science background. And it only has gotten better. My quite humble intuition about the future of deep learning is that we will need a fine grained understanding of what is really goes on under the hood, and in that landscape I think fastai is going to shine.” Entrepreneurs Piotr Czapla and Marcin Kardas are the co-founders of n-waves, a deep learning consulting company. They used fastai to develop a novel algorithm for text classification in Polish, based on ideas shown in fast.ai’s Cutting Edge Deep Learning for Coders course. Polish is challenging for NLP, since it is a morphologically rich language (e.g. number, gender, animacy, and case are all collapsed into a word’s suffix). The algorithm that Czapla and Kardas developed won first prize in the top NLP academic competition in Poland, and a paper based on this new research will be published soon. According to Czapla, the fastai library was critical to their success: “I love that fastai works well for normal people that do not have hundreds of servers at their disposal. It supports quick development and prototyping, and has all the best deep learning practices incorporated into it.” The course and community have also been important for them: “fast.ai’s courses opened my eyes to deep learning, and helped me to think and develop intuitions around how deep learning really works. Most of the answers to my questions are already on the forum somewhere, just a search away. I love how the notes from the lectures are composed into Wiki topics, and that other students are creating transcriptions of the lessons so that they are easier to find.” Example: Transfer learning in computer vision fast.ai’s research is embedded in that fastai library, so you get the benefits of it automatically. Let’s take a look at an example of what that means… Kaggle’s Dogs vs Cats competition has been a favorite part of our courses since the very start, and it represents an important class of problems: transfer learning of a pre-trained model. So we’ll take a look at how the fastai library goes on this task. Before we built fastai, we did most of our research and teaching using Keras (with the Tensorflow backend), and we’re still big fans of it. Keras really led the way in showing how to make deep learning easier to use, and it’s been a big inspiration for us. Today, it is (for good reason) the most popular way to train neural networks. In this brief example we’ll compare Keras and fastai on what we think are the three most important metrics: amount of code required, accuracy, and speed. Here’s all the code required to do 2-stage fine tuning with fastai - not only is there very little code to write, there’s very few parameters to set: Let’s compare the two libraries on this task (we’ve tried to match our Keras implementation as closely as possible, although since Keras doesn’t support all the features that fastai provides, it’s not identical): * Keras does not provide resnet 34 or TTA (It’s important to understand that these improved results over Keras in no way suggest that Keras isn’t an excellent piece of software. Quite the contrary! If you tried to complete this task with almost any other library, you would need to write far more code, and would be unlikely to see better speed or accuracy than Keras. That’s why we’re showing Keras in this comparison - because we’re admirers of it, and it’s the strongest benchmark we know of!) fastai also show similarly strong performance for NLP. The state of the art text classification algorithm is ULMFit. Here’s the relative error of ULMFiT versus previous top ranked algorithms on the popular IMDb dataset, as shown in the ULMFiT paper: fastai is currently the only library to provide this algorithm. Because the algorithm is built in to fastai, you can match the paper’s results with similar code to that shown above for Dogs vs Cats. Here’s how you train the language model for ULMFiT: Under the hood - pytorch v1 A critical component of fastai is the extraordinary foundation provided by PyTorch, v1 (preview) of which is also being released today. fastai isn’t something that replaces and hides PyTorch’s API, but instead is designed to expand and enhance it. For instance, you can create new data augmentation methods by simply creating a function that does standard PyTorch tensor operations; here’s the entire definition of fastai’s jitter function: As another example, fastai uses and extends PyTorch’s concise and expressive Dataset and DataLoader classes for accessing data. When we wanted to add support for image segmentation problems, it was as simple as defining this standard PyTorch Dataset class: This means that as practitioners want to dive deeper into their models, data, and training methods, they can take advantage of all the richness of the full PyTorch ecosystem. Thanks to PyTorch’s dynamic nature, programmers can easily debug their models using standard Python tools. In many areas of deep learning, PyTorch is the most common platform for researchers publishing their research; fastai makes it simple to test our these new approaches. Under the hood - fastai In the coming months we’ll be publishing academic papers and blog posts describing the key pieces of the fastai library, as well as releasing a new course that will walk students through how the library was developed from scratch. To give you a taste, we’ll touch on a couple of interesting pieces here, focussing on computer vision. One thing we care a lot about is speed. That’s why we competed in Stanford’s DAWNBench competition for rapid and accurate model training, where (along with our collaborators) we have achieved first place in every category we entered. If you want to match our top single-machine CIFAR-10 result, it’s as simple as four lines of code: Much of the magic is buried underneath that to_fp16() method call. Behind the scenes, we’re following all of Nvidia’s recommendations for mixed precision training. No other library that we know of provides such an easy way to leverage Nvidia’s latest technology, which gives two to three times better performance compared to previous approaches. Another thing we care a lot about is accuracy. We want your models to work well not just on your training data, but on new test data as well. Therefore, we’ve built an entirely new computer vision library from scratch that makes it easy to develop and use data augmentation methods, to improve your model’s performance on unseen data. The new library uses a new approach to minimize the number of lossy transformations that your data goes through. For instance, take a look at the three images below: On the left is the original low resolution image from the CIFAR-10 dataset. In the middle is the result of zooming and rotating this image using standard deep learning augmentation libraries. On the right is the same zoom and rotation, using fastai v1. As you can see, with fastai the detail is kept much better; for instance, take a look at how the pilot’s window is much crisper in the right-hand image than the middle image. This change to how data augmentation is applied means that practitioners using fastai can use far more augmentation than users of other libraries, resulting in models that generalize better. These data augmentations even work automatically with non-image data such as bounding boxes. For instance, here’s an example of how fastai’s works with an image detection dataset, automatically tracking each bounding box through all augmentations: These kinds of thoughtful features can be found throughout the fastai library. Over the coming months we’ll be doing deep dives in to many of them, for those of you interested in the details of how fastai is implemented behind the scenes. Thanks! Many thanks to the PyTorch team. Without PyTorch, none of this would have been possible. Thanks also to Amazon Web Services, who sponsored fast.ai’s first Researcher in Residence, Sylvain Gugger, who has contributed much of the development of fastai v1. Thanks also to fast.ai alumni Fred Monroe, Andrew Shaw, and Stas Bekman, who have all made significant contributions, to Yaroslav Bulatov, who was a key contributor to our most recent DAWNBench project, to Viacheslav Kovalevskyi, who handled Google Cloud integration, and of course to all the students and collaborators who have helped make the community and software successful. |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaalbara] | [TOKENS: 1474] |
Contents Vaalbara Vaalbara is a hypothetical Archean supercontinent consisting of the Kaapvaal craton (in present-day eastern South Africa) and the Pilbara Craton (in present-day north-western Western Australia). E. S. Cheney derived the name from the last four letters of each craton's name. The two cratons consist of continental crust dating from 3.6 to 2.7 Ga; this timing would make Vaalbara one of Earth's earliest supercontinents. Existence and lifespan There has been some debate as to when and even if Vaalbara existed. An Archaean–Palaeoproterozoic (2.8–2.1 Ga) link between South Africa and Western Australia was first proposed by Alan Button in 1976. He found a wide range of similarities between the Transvaal Basin in South Africa and the Hamersley Basin in Australia. Button, however, placed Madagascar between Africa and Australia and concluded that Gondwana must have had a long stable tectonic history. Similarly, in the reconstruction of Rogers 1993, 1996 the oldest continent is Ur. In Rogers' reconstructions, however, Kaapvaal and Pilbara are placed far apart already in their Gondwana configuration, a reconstruction contradicted by later orogenic events and incompatible with the Vaalbara hypothesis. Cheney 1996, nevertheless, found a three-fold stratigraphic similarity and proposed that the two cratons once formed a continent which he named Vaalbara. This model is supported by the palaeomagnetic data of Zegers, de Wit & White 1998. Reconstructions of the palaeolatitudes of the two cratons at 2.78–2.77 Ga are ambiguous however. In the reconstruction of Wingate 1998 they fail to overlap, but they do in more recent reconstructions, for example Strik et al. 2003. Other scientists dispute the existence of Vaalbara and explain similarities between the two cratons as the product of global processes. They point, for example, to thick volcanic deposits on other cratons such as Amazonia, São Francisco, and Karnataka. Zimgarn, another proposed supercraton composed of the Zimbabwe and Yilgarn cratons at 2.41 Ga, is distinct from Vaalbara. Zimgarn should have disintegrated around 2.1–2.0 Ga to reassemble as the Kalahari and West Australian (Yilgarn and Pilbara) cratons around 1.95–1.8 Ga. The Archaean–Palaeoproterozoic Grunehogna Craton in Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica, formed the eastern part of the Kalahari Craton for at least a billion years. Grunehogna collided with the rest of East Antarctica during the Mesoproterozoic assembly of the supercontinent Rodinia and the Grenville orogeny. The Neoproterozoic Pan-African orogeny and the assembly of Gondwana/Pannotia produced large shear zones between Grunehogna and Kalahari. During the Jurassic break-up of Gondwana, these shear zones finally separated Grunehogna and the rest of Antarctica from Africa. In the Annandags Peaks in Antarctica, the only exposed parts of Grunehogna, detrital zircons from several crustal sources have been dated to 3.9–3.0 Ga suggesting intracrustal recycling was an important part in the formation of the first cratons. The Kaapvaal craton is marked by dramatic events such as the intrusion of the Bushveld Complex (2.045 Ga) and the Vredefort impact event (2.025 Ga), and no traces of these events have been found in the Pilbara craton, clearly indicating that the two cratons were separated before 2.05 Ga. Furthermore, geochronological and palaeomagnetic evidence show that the two cratons had a rotational 30° latitudinal separation in the time period of 2.78–2.77 Ga, which indicates they were no longer joined after c. 2.8 billion years ago. Vaalbara thus remained stable for 1–0.4 Ga and hence had a life span similar to that of later supercontinents such as Gondwana and Rodinia. Some palaeomagnetic reconstructions suggest a Palaeoarchaean proto-Vaalbara is possible, although the existence of this 3.6–3.2 Ga continent cannot be proven. Evidence South Africa's Kaapvaal craton and Western Australia's Pilbara craton have similar early Precambrian cover sequences. Kaapvaal's Barberton granite-greenstone terrane and Pilbara's eastern block show evidence of four large meteorite impacts between 3.2 and 3.5 billion years ago. Similar greenstone belts are found at the margins of the Superior Craton of Canada. The high temperatures created by the impacts' forces fused sediments into small glassy spherules. Spherules of 3.5 billion years old exist in South Africa, and spherules of a similar age have been found in Western Australia; they are the oldest-known terrestrial impact products. The spherules resemble the glassy chondrules (rounded granules) in carbonaceous chondrites, which are found in carbon-rich meteorites and lunar soils. Remarkably similar lithostratigraphic and chronostratigraphic structural sequences between these two cratons have been noted for the period between 3.5 and 2.7 Ga. Paleomagnetic data from two ultramafic complexes in the cratons showed that at 3.87 Ga the two cratons could have been part of the same supercontinent. Both the Pilbara and Kaapvaal cratons show extensional faults which were active about 3.47 Ga during felsic volcanism and coeval with the impact layers. Origin of life The Pilbara and Kaapvaal cratons contain well-preserved Archaean microfossils. Drilling has revealed traces of microbial life and photosynthesis from the Archaean in both Africa and Australia. The oldest widely accepted evidence of photosynthesis by early life forms is molecular fossils found in 2.7 Ga-old shales in the Pilbara Craton. These fossils have been interpreted as traces of eukaryotes and cyanobacteria, though some scientists argue that these biomarkers must have entered these rocks later and date the fossils to 2.15–1.68 Ga. This later time span agrees with estimates based on molecular clocks which dates the eukaryote last common ancestor at 1.8–1.7 Ga. If the Pilbara fossils are traces of early eukaryotes, they could represent groups that went extinct before modern groups emerged. See also Notes References Africa Antarctica Asia Australia Europe North America South America Afro-Eurasia Americas Eurasia Oceania |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson#cite_ref-29] | [TOKENS: 3525] |
Contents Markus Persson Markus Alexej Persson (/ˈpɪərsən/ ⓘ PEER-sən, Swedish: [ˈmǎrːkɵs ˈpæ̌ːʂɔn] ⓘ; born 1 June 1979), known by the pseudonym Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is the creator of Minecraft, the best-selling video game in history. He founded the video game development company Mojang Studios in 2009. Persson began developing video games at an early age. His commercial success began after he published an early version of Minecraft in 2009. Prior to the game's official retail release in 2011, it had sold over four million copies. After this point Persson stood down as the lead designer and transferred his creative authority to Jens Bergensten. In September 2014 Persson announced his intention to leave Mojang, and in November of that year the company was sold to Microsoft reportedly for US$2.5 billion, which made him a billionaire. Since 2016 several of Persson's posts on Twitter regarding feminism, race, and transgender rights have caused public controversies. He has been described as "an increasingly polarizing figure, tweeting offensive statements regarding race, the LGBTQ community, gender, and other topics." In an effort to distance itself from Persson, Microsoft removed mentions of his name from Minecraft (excluding one instance in the game's end credits) and did not invite him to the game's tenth anniversary celebration. In 2015 he co-founded a separate game studio called Rubberbrain, which was relaunched in 2024 as Bitshift Entertainment. Early life Markus Alexej Persson was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to a Finnish mother, Ritva, and a Swedish father, Birger, on 1 June 1979. He has one sister. He grew up in Edsbyn until he was seven years old, when his family moved back to Stockholm. In Edsbyn, Persson's father worked for the railroad, and his mother was a nurse. He spent much time outdoors in Edsbyn, exploring the woods with his friends. When Persson was about seven years old, his parents divorced, and he and his sister lived with their mother. His father moved to a cabin in the countryside. Persson said in an interview that they experienced food insecurity around once a month. Persson lost contact with his father for several years after the divorce. According to Persson, his father suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and medication abuse, and went to jail for robberies. While his father had somewhat recovered during Persson's early life, his father relapsed, contributing to the divorce. His sister also experimented with drugs and ran away from home. He had gained interest in video games at an early age. His father was "a really big nerd", who built his own modem and taught Persson to use the family's Commodore 128. On it, Persson played bootleg games and loaded in various type-in programs from computer magazines with the help of his sister. The first game he purchased with his own money was The Bard's Tale. He began programming on his father's Commodore 128 home computer at the age of seven. He produced his first game at the age of eight, a text-based adventure game. By 1994 Persson knew he wanted to become a video game developer, but his teachers advised him to study graphic design, which he did from ages 15 to 18. Persson, although introverted, was well-liked by his peers, but after entering secondary school was a "loner" and reportedly had only one friend. He spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. He managed to reverse-engineer the Doom engine, which he continued to take great pride in as of 2014[update]. He never finished high school, but was reportedly a good student. Career Persson started his career working as a web designer. He later found employment at Game Federation, where he met Rolf Jansson. The pair worked in their spare time to build the 2006 video game Wurm Online. The game was released through a new entity, "Mojang Specifications AB". Persson left the project in late 2007. As Persson wanted to reuse the name "Mojang", Jansson agreed to rename the company to Onetoofree AB. Between 2004 and 2009 Persson worked as a game developer for Midasplayer (later known as King). There, he worked as a programmer, mostly building browser games made in Flash. He later worked as a programmer for jAlbum. Prior to creating Minecraft, Persson developed multiple, small games. He also entered a number of game design competitions and participated in discussions on the TIGSource forums, a web forum for independent game developers. One of Persson's more notable personal projects was called RubyDung, an isometric three-dimensional base-building game like RollerCoaster Tycoon and Dwarf Fortress. While working on RubyDung, Persson experimented with a first-person view mode similar to that found in Dungeon Keeper. However, he felt the graphics were too pixelated and omitted this mode. In 2009 Persson found inspiration in Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game. Infiniminer heavily influenced his future work on RubyDung, and was behind Persson's reasoning for returning the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals to the game. RubyDung is the earliest known Minecraft prototype created by Persson. On 17 May 2009 Persson released the original edition (later called "Classic version") of Minecraft on the TIGSource forums. He regularly updated the game based on feedback from TIGSource users. Persson released several new versions of Minecraft throughout 2009 and 2010, going through several phases of development including Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev. On 30 June 2010 Persson released the game's Alpha version. While working on the pre-Alpha version of Minecraft, Persson continued working at jAlbum. In 2010, after the release and subsequent success of Minecraft's Alpha version, Persson moved from a full-time role to a part-time role at jAlbum. He left jAlbum later that same year. In September 2010 Persson travelled to Valve Corporation's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, United States, where he took part in a programming exercise and met Gabe Newell. Persson was subsequently offered a job at Valve, which he turned down in order to continue work on Minecraft. On 20 December 2010 Minecraft moved into its beta phase and began expanding to other platforms, including mobile. In January 2011 Minecraft reached one million registered accounts. Six months afterwards, it reached ten million. The game has sold over four million copies by 7 November 2011. Mojang held the first Minecon from 18 to 19 November 2011 to celebrate its full release, and subsequently made it an annual event. Following this, on 11 December 2011, Persson transferred creative control of Minecraft to Jens Bergensten and began working on another game title, 0x10c, although he reportedly abandoned the project around 2013. In 2013 Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million and profits of $129 million. Persson has stated that, due to the intense media attention and public pressure, he became exhausted with running Minecraft and Mojang. In a September 2014 blog post he shared his realization that he "didn't have the connection to my fans I thought I had", that he had "become a symbol", and that he did not wish to be responsible for Mojang's increasingly large operation. In June 2014 Persson tweeted "Anyone want to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life? Getting hate for trying to do the right thing is not my gig", reportedly partly as a joke. Persson controlled a 71% stake in Mojang at the time. The offer attracted significant interest from Activision Blizzard, EA, and Microsoft. Forbes later reported that Microsoft wanted to purchase the game as a "tax dodge" to turn their taxable excess liquid cash into other assets. In September 2014 Microsoft agreed to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion, making Persson a billionaire. He then left the company after the deal was finalised in November. Since leaving Mojang, Persson has worked on several small projects. On 23 June 2014 he founded a company with Porsér called Rubberbrain AB; the company had no games by 2021, despite spending SEK 60 million. The company was relaunched as Bitshift Entertainment, LLC on 28 March 2024. Persson expressed interest in creating a new video game studio in 2020, and in developing virtual reality games. He has also since created a series of narrative-driven immersive events called ".party()", which uses extensive visual effects and has been hosted in multiple cities. At the beginning of 2025 Persson decided to create a spiritual successor to Minecraft, referred to as "Minecraft 2", in response to the results of a poll on X. However, after speaking to his team, he shortly went against this in favour of developing the other choice on his Twitter poll, a roguelike titled Levers and Chests. Games Persson's most popular creation is the survival sandbox game Minecraft, which was first publicly available on 17 May 2009 and fully released on 18 November 2011. Persson left his job as a game developer to work on Minecraft full-time until completion. In early 2011, Mojang AB sold the one millionth copy of the game, several months later their second, and several more their third. Mojang hired several new staff members for the Minecraft team, while Persson passed the lead developer role to Jens Bergensten. He stopped working on Minecraft after a deal with Microsoft to sell Mojang for $2.5 billion. This brought his net worth to US$1.5 billion. Persson and Jakob Porsér came up with the idea for Scrolls including elements from board games and collectible card games. Persson noted that he will not be actively involved in development of the game and that Porsér will be developing it. Persson revealed on his Tumblr blog on 5 August 2011 that he was being sued by a Swedish law firm representing Bethesda Softworks over the trademarked name of Scrolls, claiming that it conflicted with their The Elder Scrolls series of games. On 17 August 2011 Persson challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 tournament to decide the outcome of the naming dispute. On 27 September 2011 Persson confirmed that the lawsuit was going to court. ZeniMax Media, owner of Bethesda Softworks, announced the lawsuit's settlement in March 2012. The settlement allowed Mojang to continue using the Scrolls trademark. In 2018, Scrolls was made available free of charge and renamed to Caller's Bane. Cliffhorse is a humorous game programmed in two hours using the Unity game engine and free assets. The game took inspiration from Skyrim's physics engine, "the more embarrassing minimum-effort Greenlight games", Goat Simulator, and Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. The game was released to Microsoft Windows systems as an early access and honourware game on the first day of E3 2014, instructing users to donate Dogecoin to "buy" the game before downloading it. The game accumulated over 280,000 dogecoins. Following the end to his involvement with Minecraft, Persson began pre-production of an alternate reality space game set in the distant future in March 2012. On April Fools' Day Mojang launched a satirical website for Mars Effect (parody of Mass Effect), citing the lawsuit with Bethesda as an inspiration. However, the gameplay elements remained true and on 4 April, Mojang revealed 0x10c (pronounced "Ten to the C") as a space sandbox title. Persson officially halted game production in August 2013. However, C418, the composer of the game's soundtrack (as well as that of Minecraft), released an album of the work he had made for the game. In 2013, Persson made a free game called Shambles in the Unity game engine. Persson has also participated in several Ludum Dare 48-hour game making competitions. Personal life In 2011 Persson married Elin Zetterstrand, whom he had dated for four years before. Zetterstrand was a former moderator on the Minecraft forums. They had a daughter together, but by mid-2012, he began to see little of her. On 15 August 2012 he announced that he and his wife had filed for divorce. The divorce was finalised later that year. On 14 December 2011 Persson's father committed suicide with a handgun after drinking heavily. In an interview with The New Yorker, Persson said of his father: When I decided I wanted to quit my day job and work on my own games, he was the only person who supported my decision. He was proud of me and made sure I knew. When I added the monsters to Minecraft, he told me that the dark caves became too scary for him. But I think that was the only true criticism I ever heard from him. Persson later admitted that he himself suffered from depression and various highs and lows in his mood. Persson has criticised the stance of large game companies on piracy. He once stated that "piracy is not theft", viewing unauthorised downloads as potential future customers. Persson stated himself to be a member of the Pirate Party of Sweden in 2011. He is also a member of Mensa. He has donated to numerous charities, including Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Under his direction, Mojang spent a week developing Catacomb Snatch for the Humble Indie Bundle and raised US$458,248 for charity. He also donated $250,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2012. In 2011 he gave $3 million in dividends back to Mojang employees. According to Forbes, his net worth in 2023 was around $1.2 billion. In 2014 Persson was one of the biggest taxpayers in Sweden. Around 2014, he lived in a multi-level penthouse in Östermalm, Stockholm, an area he described as "where the rich people live". In December 2014 Persson purchased a home in Trousdale Estates, a neighbourhood in Beverly Hills, California, in the United States, for $70 million, a record sales price for Beverly Hills at the time. Persson reportedly outbid Beyoncé and Jay-Z for the property. Persson began receiving criticism for political and social opinions he expressed on social media as early as 2016. November 30, 2017 In 2017, he proposed a heterosexual pride holiday, and wrote that those who opposed the idea "deserve to be shot." After facing backlash, he deleted the tweets and rescinded his statements, writing, "So yeah, it's about pride of daring to express, not about pride of being who you are. I get it now." Later in the year, he wrote that feminism is a "social disease" and called the video game developer and feminist Zoë Quinn a "cunt", although he was generally critical of the GamerGate movement. He has described intersectional feminism as a "framework for bigotry" and the use of the word mansplaining as being sexist. Also in 2017, Persson tweeted that "It's okay to be white". Later that year, he stated that he believed in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. In 2019, he tweeted referencing QAnon, saying "Q is legit. Don't trust the media." Later in 2019, he tweeted in response to a pro-transgender internet meme that, "You are absolutely evil if you want to encourage delusion. What happened to not stigmatizing mental illness?" He then also promoted claims that people were fined for "using the wrong pronoun". However, after facing backlash, he tweeted a day afterwards that he had "no idea what [being trans is] like of course, but it's inspiring as hell when people open up and choose to actually be who they know themselves as. Not because it's a cool choice, because it's a big step. I gues [sic] that's actually cool nvm". Later that year, Microsoft removed two mentions of Persson's name in the "19w13a" snapshot of Minecraft and did not invite him to the 10-year anniversary celebration of the game. A spokesperson for Microsoft stated that his views "do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang". He is still mentioned in the End Poem ("a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus").[citation needed] Awards References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazonian_craton] | [TOKENS: 313] |
Contents Amazonian Craton The Amazonian Craton is a geologic province in South America. It occupies a large portion of the central, north and eastern part of the continent and represents one of Earth's largest cratonic regions. The Guiana Shield and Central Brazil Shield (Guaporé Shield) constitute respectively the northern and southern exhumed parts of the craton. Between the two shields lies the Amazon Rift, a zone of weakness within the craton. Smaller cratons of Precambrian rocks south of the Amazonian Shield are the Río de la Plata Craton and the São Francisco Craton, which lies to the east. The Río Apa Craton at the Paraguay–Brazil border is considered to be likely just the southern part of the Amazonian Craton. The rocks of Río Apa were deformed during the Sunsás orogeny. It has been suggested that the Late Mesoproterozoic–Early Neoproterozoic aged Sveconorwegian Orogen in Fennoscandia could have been caused by a continent–continent collision between the continents of Amazonia and Baltica. The question is open if Telemarkia terrane in Norway was derived from the Amazonian Craton, but this possibility does not imply necessarily that there was a continental collision. See also References Further reading Africa Antarctica Asia Australia Europe North America South America Afro-Eurasia Americas Eurasia Oceania This palaeogeography article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information. |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Corporates] | [TOKENS: 324] |
Contents OpenCorporates OpenCorporates is a website that shares data on corporations under the copyleft Open Database License. The company, OpenCorporates Ltd,[b] was incorporated on 18 December 2010 by Chris Taggart and Rob McKinnon, and the website was officially launched on 20th. Data is sourced from national business registries in 140 jurisdictions, and presented in a standardised form. Collected data comprises the name of the entity, date of incorporation, registered addresses, and the names of directors. Some data, such as the ownership structure, is contributed by users. Recognition In 2011, the site won third place in the Open Data Challenge. Vice President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes said the site "is the kind of resource the (Digital) Single Market needs and it is encouraging to see that it is being built." The project was represented on the European Union's Core Vocabularies Working Group's Core Business Task Force. In early 2012, the project was appointed to the Financial Stability Board's advisory panel on a Legal Entity Identification for Financial Contracts. In July 2015, OpenCorporates was a finalist in both the Business and Publisher categories at the Open Data Institute Awards. It was announced as the winner of the Open Data Business Award due to work with promoting data transparency in the corporate sector. Usage The service has been used to study public procurement data, online hiring market, to visualize and analyze company data, to analyze tax havens, and illicit activities of companies. See also Explanatory notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Language_model&mobileaction=toggle_view_mobile] | [TOKENS: 1793] |
Language model A language model is a computational model that predicts sequences in natural language. Language models are useful for a variety of tasks, including speech recognition, machine translation, natural language generation (generating more human-like text), optical character recognition, route optimization, handwriting recognition, grammar induction, and information retrieval. Large language models (LLMs), currently their most advanced form as of 2019, are predominantly based on transformers trained on larger datasets (frequently using texts scraped from the public internet). They have superseded recurrent neural network-based models, which had previously superseded the purely statistical models, such as the word n-gram language model. Contents History Noam Chomsky did pioneering work on language models in the 1950s by developing a theory of formal grammars. In 1980, statistical approaches were explored and found to be more useful for many purposes than rule-based formal grammars. Discrete representations like word n-gram language models, with probabilities for discrete combinations of words, made significant advances. In the 2000s, continuous representations for words, such as word embeddings, began to replace discrete representations. Typically, the representation is a real-valued vector that encodes a word’s meaning such that words closer in vector space are similar in meaning and common relationships between words, such as plurality or gender, are preserved. Pure statistical models In 1980, the first significant statistical language model was proposed, and during the decade IBM performed 'Shannon-style' experiments, in which potential sources for language modeling improvement were identified by observing and analyzing the performance of human subjects in predicting or correcting text. A word n-gram language model is a statistical model of language which calculates the probability of the next word in a sequence from a fixed size window of previous words. If one previous word is considered, it is a bigram model; if two words, a trigram model; if n − 1 words, an n-gram model. Special tokens are introduced to denote the start and end of a sentence ⟨ s ⟩ {\displaystyle \langle s\rangle } and ⟨ / s ⟩ {\displaystyle \langle /s\rangle } . To prevent a zero probability being assigned to unseen words, the probability of each seen word is slightly lowered to make room for the unseen words in a given corpus. To achieve this, various smoothing methods are used, from simple "add-one" smoothing (assigning a count of 1 to unseen n-grams, as an uninformative prior) to more sophisticated techniques, such as Good–Turing discounting or back-off models. Word n-gram models have largely been superseded by recurrent neural network–based models, which in turn have been superseded by Transformer-based models often referred to as large language models. Maximum entropy language models encode the relationship between a word and the n-gram history using feature functions. The equation is P ( w m ∣ w 1 , … , w m − 1 ) = 1 Z ( w 1 , … , w m − 1 ) exp ( a T f ( w 1 , … , w m ) ) {\displaystyle P(w_{m}\mid w_{1},\ldots ,w_{m-1})={\frac {1}{Z(w_{1},\ldots ,w_{m-1})}}\exp(a^{T}f(w_{1},\ldots ,w_{m}))} where Z ( w 1 , … , w m − 1 ) {\displaystyle Z(w_{1},\ldots ,w_{m-1})} is the partition function, a {\displaystyle a} is the parameter vector, and f ( w 1 , … , w m ) {\displaystyle f(w_{1},\ldots ,w_{m})} is the feature function. In the simplest case, the feature function is just an indicator of the presence of a certain n-gram. It is helpful to use a prior on a {\displaystyle a} or some form of regularization. The log-bilinear model is another example of an exponential language model. Skip-gram language model is an attempt at overcoming the data sparsity problem that the preceding model (i.e. word n-gram language model) faced. Words represented in an embedding vector were not necessarily consecutive anymore, but could leave gaps that are skipped over (thus the name "skip-gram"). Formally, a k-skip-n-gram is a length-n subsequence where the components occur at distance at most k from each other. For example, in the input text: the set of 1-skip-2-grams includes all the bigrams (2-grams), and in addition the subsequences In skip-gram model, semantic relations between words are represented by linear combinations, capturing a form of compositionality. For example, in some such models, if v is the function that maps a word w to its n-d vector representation, then v ( k i n g ) − v ( m a l e ) + v ( f e m a l e ) ≈ v ( q u e e n ) {\displaystyle v(\mathrm {king} )-v(\mathrm {male} )+v(\mathrm {female} )\approx v(\mathrm {queen} )} where ≈ is made precise by stipulating that its right-hand side must be the nearest neighbor of the value of the left-hand side. Neural models Continuous representations or embeddings of words are produced in recurrent neural network-based language models (known also as continuous space language models). Such continuous space embeddings help to alleviate the curse of dimensionality, which is the consequence of the number of possible sequences of words increasing exponentially with the size of the vocabulary, further causing a data sparsity problem. Neural networks avoid this problem by representing words as non-linear combinations of weights in a neural net. A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially language generation. The largest and most capable LLMs are generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) that provide the core capabilities of modern chatbots. LLMs can be fine-tuned for specific tasks or guided by prompt engineering. These models acquire predictive power regarding syntax, semantics, and ontologies inherent in human language corpora, but they also inherit inaccuracies and biases present in the data they are trained on. They consist of billions to trillions of parameters and operate as general-purpose sequence models, generating, summarizing, translating, and reasoning over text. LLMs represent a significant new technology in their ability to generalize across tasks with minimal task-specific supervision, enabling capabilities like conversational agents, code generation, knowledge retrieval, and automated reasoning that previously required bespoke systems. LLMs evolved from earlier statistical and recurrent neural network approaches to language modeling. The transformer architecture, introduced in 2017, replaced recurrence with self-attention, allowing efficient parallelization, longer context handling, and scalable training on unprecedented data volumes. This innovation enabled models like GPT, BERT, and their successors, which demonstrated emergent behaviors at scale, such as few-shot learning and compositional reasoning. Reinforcement learning, particularly policy gradient algorithms, has been adapted to fine-tune LLMs for desired behaviors beyond raw next-token prediction. Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) applies these methods to optimize a policy, the LLM's output distribution, against reward signals derived from human or automated preference judgments. This has been critical for aligning model outputs with user expectations, improving factuality, reducing harmful responses, and enhancing task performance. Benchmark evaluations for LLMs have evolved from narrow linguistic assessments toward comprehensive, multi-task evaluations measuring reasoning, factual accuracy, alignment, and safety. Hill climbing, iteratively optimizing models against benchmarks, has emerged as a dominant strategy, producing rapid incremental performance gains but raising concerns of overfitting to benchmarks rather than achieving genuine generalization or robust capability improvements. Although sometimes matching human performance, it is not clear whether they are plausible cognitive models. At least for recurrent neural networks, it has been shown that they sometimes learn patterns that humans do not, but fail to learn patterns that humans typically do. Evaluation and benchmarks Evaluation of the quality of language models is mostly done by comparison to human created sample benchmarks created from typical language-oriented tasks. Other, less established, quality tests examine the intrinsic character of a language model or compare two such models. Since language models are typically intended to be dynamic and to learn from data they see, some proposed models investigate the rate of learning, e.g., through inspection of learning curves. Various data sets have been developed for use in evaluating language processing systems. These include: See also References Further reading |
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[SOURCE: https://www.fast.ai/posts/2018-09-26-ml-launch.html] | [TOKENS: 1917] |
Introduction to Machine Learning for Coders: Launch Jeremy Howard September 26, 2018 On this page Today we’re launching our newest (and biggest!) course, Introduction to Machine Learning for Coders. The course, recorded at the University of San Francisco as part of the Masters of Science in Data Science curriculum, covers the most important practical foundations for modern machine learning. There are 12 lessons, each of which is around two hours long—a list of all the lessons along with a screenshot from each is at the end of this post. They are all taught by me (Jeremy Howard); I’ve been studying and using machine learning for over 25 years, from when I started my career as an Analytical Specialist at McKinsey & Company, through to my time as President and Chief Scientist of Kaggle and founding CEO of Enlitic. There are some excellent machine learning courses already, most notably the wonderful Coursera course from Andrew Ng. But that course is showing its age now, particularly since it uses Matlab for coursework. This new course uses modern tools and libraries, including python, pandas, scikit-learn, and pytorch. Unlike many educational materials in the field, our approach is “code first” rather than “math first”. It’s well suited to people who are writing code every day, but perhaps aren’t practicing their math chops quite as often (although we do cover all the necessary theory when appropriate). Perhaps most importantly, this course is very opinionated—rather than being a complete survey of every type of model, we focus on those that really matter in practice. Two main types of models are covered: decision tree based models (particularly “forests” of bagged decision trees), and gradient descent based models (particularly logistic regression and its variants). Decision tree models build structures that look like this (in practice you’ll generally use much larger trees): (The example above is from Professor Terence Parr and Prince Grover’s excellent discussion of tree visualization techniques, and uses his new animl visualization library. Terence and I are currently writing a book based on the material from this course, and a preview is available of the first chapters. So if you’re more of a book learner than a video learner, be sure to follow that!) Decision tree methods are extremely flexible and easy to use, and when ensembled (using bagging or boosting) are the state of the art on many practical tasks. However, they can struggle with extrapolating to data outside of that they’re trained on, and are not very accurate for data types such as images, audio, and natural language. These problems are often best solved with gradient descent methods, and we’ll look at some of the most important of these in the second half of the course, closing with a simple deep learning neural network. (If you’ve already taken our Practical Deep Learning for Coders course, you’ll have a small amount of conceptual overlap here, but taught in a very different way.) You’ll learn how to create a complete decision tree forest implementation from scratch, and write your your deep learning model and train it from scratch. Along the way, you’ll learn many important skills in data preparation, model testing, and product development (including ethical issues specific to data products). Here’s a quick overview of each lesson, along with an example screenshot (you’ll find the same details on the course site): Lesson 1 will show you how to create a “random forest™” - perhaps the most widely applicable machine learning model - to create a solution to the “Bull Book for Bulldozers” Kaggle competition, which will get you in to the top 25% on the leader-board. You’ll learn how to use a Jupyter Notebook to build and analyze models, how to download data, and other basic skills you need to get started with machine learning in practice. Today we start by learning about metrics, loss functions, and (perhaps the most important machine learning concept) over-fitting. We discuss using validation and test sets to help us measure over-fitting. Then we’ll learn how random forests work - first, by looking at the individual trees that make them up, then by learning about “bagging”, the simple trick that lets a random forest be much more accurate than any individual tree. Next up, we look at some helpful tricks that random forests support for making them faster, and more accurate. Today we’ll see how to read a much larger dataset - one which may not even fit in the RAM on your machine! And we’ll also learn how to create a random forest for that dataset. We also discuss the software engineering concept of “profiling”, to learn how to speed up our code if it’s not fast enough - especially useful for these big datasets. Next, we do a deeper dive in to validation sets, and discuss what makes a good validation set, and we use that discussion to pick a validation set for this new data. In the second half of this lesson, we look at “model interpretation” - the critically important skill of using your model to better understand your data. Today’s focus for interpretation is the “feature importance plot”, which is perhaps the most useful model interpretation technique. Today we do a deep dive into feature importance, including ways to make your importance plots more informative, how to use them to prune your feature space, and the use of a “dendrogram” to understand feature relationships. In the second half of the lesson we’ll learn about two more really important interpretation techniques: partial dependence plots, and the “tree interpreter”. In today’s lesson we start by learning more about the “tree interpreter”, including the use of “waterfall charts” to analyze their output. Next up, we look into the subtle but important issue of extrapolation. This is the weak point of random forests - they can’t predict values outside the range of the input data. We study ways to identify when this problem happens, and how to deal with it. In the second half of this lesson, we start writing our very own random forest from scratch! In the first half of today’s lesson we’ll learn about how to create “data products” using machine learning models, based on “The Drivetrain Method”, and in particular how model interpretation is an important part of this approach. Next up, we’ll explore the issue of extrapolation more deeply, using a Live Coding approach - we’ll also take this opportunity to learn a couple of handy numpy tricks. Today we’ll finish off our “from scratch” random forest interpretation! We’ll also briefly look at the amazing “cython” library that you can use to get the same speed as C code with minimal changes to your python code. Then we’ll start on the next stage of our journey - gradient descent based methods such as logistic regression and neural networks… Today we start the second half of the course - we’re moving from decision tree based approaches like random forests, to gradient descent based approaches like deep learning. Our first step in this journey will be to use Pytorch to help us implement logistic regression from scratch. We’ll be building a model for the classic MNIST dataset of hand-written digits. Today we continue building our logistic regression from scratch, and we add the most important feature to it: regularization. We’ll learn about L1 vs L2 regularization, and how they can be implemented. We also talk more about how learning rates work, and how to pick one for your problem. In the second half of the lesson, we start our discussion of natural language processing (NLP). We’ll build a “bag of words” representation of the popular IMDb text dataset, using sparse matrices to ensure good performance and reasonable memory use. We’ll build a number of models from this, including naive bayes and logistic regression, and will improve these models by adding ngram features. In today’s lesson we’ll further develop our NLP model by combining the strengths of naive bayes and logistic regression together, creating the hybrid “NB-SVM” model, which is a very strong baseline for text classification. To do this, we’ll create a new nn.Module class in pytorch, and look at what it’s doing behind the scenes. In the second half of the lesson we’ll start our study of tabular and relational data using deep learning, by looking at the “Rossmann” Kaggle competition dataset. Today, we’ll start down the feature engineering path on this interesting dataset. We’ll look at continuous vs categorical variables, and what kinds of feature engineering can be done for each, with a particular focus on using embedding matrices for categorical variables. Today, after a review of the math behind naive bayes, we’ll do a deep dive into embeddings - both as used for categorical variables in tabular data, and as used for words in NLP. In the first half of today’s class we’ll put everything we’ve learned together to create a complete model for the Rossmann dataset, including both categorical and continuous features, and careful feature engineering for all columns. In the second half of the class we’ll study some ethical issues that arise when implementing machine learning models. We’ll see why they should matter to practitioners, and ways of thinking about them. Many students have told us they found this the most important part of the course! Note from Jeremy: I’ll be teaching Deep Learning for Coders at the University of San Francisco starting in October; if you’ve got at least a year of coding experience, you can apply here. |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson#cite_ref-31] | [TOKENS: 3525] |
Contents Markus Persson Markus Alexej Persson (/ˈpɪərsən/ ⓘ PEER-sən, Swedish: [ˈmǎrːkɵs ˈpæ̌ːʂɔn] ⓘ; born 1 June 1979), known by the pseudonym Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is the creator of Minecraft, the best-selling video game in history. He founded the video game development company Mojang Studios in 2009. Persson began developing video games at an early age. His commercial success began after he published an early version of Minecraft in 2009. Prior to the game's official retail release in 2011, it had sold over four million copies. After this point Persson stood down as the lead designer and transferred his creative authority to Jens Bergensten. In September 2014 Persson announced his intention to leave Mojang, and in November of that year the company was sold to Microsoft reportedly for US$2.5 billion, which made him a billionaire. Since 2016 several of Persson's posts on Twitter regarding feminism, race, and transgender rights have caused public controversies. He has been described as "an increasingly polarizing figure, tweeting offensive statements regarding race, the LGBTQ community, gender, and other topics." In an effort to distance itself from Persson, Microsoft removed mentions of his name from Minecraft (excluding one instance in the game's end credits) and did not invite him to the game's tenth anniversary celebration. In 2015 he co-founded a separate game studio called Rubberbrain, which was relaunched in 2024 as Bitshift Entertainment. Early life Markus Alexej Persson was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to a Finnish mother, Ritva, and a Swedish father, Birger, on 1 June 1979. He has one sister. He grew up in Edsbyn until he was seven years old, when his family moved back to Stockholm. In Edsbyn, Persson's father worked for the railroad, and his mother was a nurse. He spent much time outdoors in Edsbyn, exploring the woods with his friends. When Persson was about seven years old, his parents divorced, and he and his sister lived with their mother. His father moved to a cabin in the countryside. Persson said in an interview that they experienced food insecurity around once a month. Persson lost contact with his father for several years after the divorce. According to Persson, his father suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and medication abuse, and went to jail for robberies. While his father had somewhat recovered during Persson's early life, his father relapsed, contributing to the divorce. His sister also experimented with drugs and ran away from home. He had gained interest in video games at an early age. His father was "a really big nerd", who built his own modem and taught Persson to use the family's Commodore 128. On it, Persson played bootleg games and loaded in various type-in programs from computer magazines with the help of his sister. The first game he purchased with his own money was The Bard's Tale. He began programming on his father's Commodore 128 home computer at the age of seven. He produced his first game at the age of eight, a text-based adventure game. By 1994 Persson knew he wanted to become a video game developer, but his teachers advised him to study graphic design, which he did from ages 15 to 18. Persson, although introverted, was well-liked by his peers, but after entering secondary school was a "loner" and reportedly had only one friend. He spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. He managed to reverse-engineer the Doom engine, which he continued to take great pride in as of 2014[update]. He never finished high school, but was reportedly a good student. Career Persson started his career working as a web designer. He later found employment at Game Federation, where he met Rolf Jansson. The pair worked in their spare time to build the 2006 video game Wurm Online. The game was released through a new entity, "Mojang Specifications AB". Persson left the project in late 2007. As Persson wanted to reuse the name "Mojang", Jansson agreed to rename the company to Onetoofree AB. Between 2004 and 2009 Persson worked as a game developer for Midasplayer (later known as King). There, he worked as a programmer, mostly building browser games made in Flash. He later worked as a programmer for jAlbum. Prior to creating Minecraft, Persson developed multiple, small games. He also entered a number of game design competitions and participated in discussions on the TIGSource forums, a web forum for independent game developers. One of Persson's more notable personal projects was called RubyDung, an isometric three-dimensional base-building game like RollerCoaster Tycoon and Dwarf Fortress. While working on RubyDung, Persson experimented with a first-person view mode similar to that found in Dungeon Keeper. However, he felt the graphics were too pixelated and omitted this mode. In 2009 Persson found inspiration in Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game. Infiniminer heavily influenced his future work on RubyDung, and was behind Persson's reasoning for returning the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals to the game. RubyDung is the earliest known Minecraft prototype created by Persson. On 17 May 2009 Persson released the original edition (later called "Classic version") of Minecraft on the TIGSource forums. He regularly updated the game based on feedback from TIGSource users. Persson released several new versions of Minecraft throughout 2009 and 2010, going through several phases of development including Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev. On 30 June 2010 Persson released the game's Alpha version. While working on the pre-Alpha version of Minecraft, Persson continued working at jAlbum. In 2010, after the release and subsequent success of Minecraft's Alpha version, Persson moved from a full-time role to a part-time role at jAlbum. He left jAlbum later that same year. In September 2010 Persson travelled to Valve Corporation's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, United States, where he took part in a programming exercise and met Gabe Newell. Persson was subsequently offered a job at Valve, which he turned down in order to continue work on Minecraft. On 20 December 2010 Minecraft moved into its beta phase and began expanding to other platforms, including mobile. In January 2011 Minecraft reached one million registered accounts. Six months afterwards, it reached ten million. The game has sold over four million copies by 7 November 2011. Mojang held the first Minecon from 18 to 19 November 2011 to celebrate its full release, and subsequently made it an annual event. Following this, on 11 December 2011, Persson transferred creative control of Minecraft to Jens Bergensten and began working on another game title, 0x10c, although he reportedly abandoned the project around 2013. In 2013 Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million and profits of $129 million. Persson has stated that, due to the intense media attention and public pressure, he became exhausted with running Minecraft and Mojang. In a September 2014 blog post he shared his realization that he "didn't have the connection to my fans I thought I had", that he had "become a symbol", and that he did not wish to be responsible for Mojang's increasingly large operation. In June 2014 Persson tweeted "Anyone want to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life? Getting hate for trying to do the right thing is not my gig", reportedly partly as a joke. Persson controlled a 71% stake in Mojang at the time. The offer attracted significant interest from Activision Blizzard, EA, and Microsoft. Forbes later reported that Microsoft wanted to purchase the game as a "tax dodge" to turn their taxable excess liquid cash into other assets. In September 2014 Microsoft agreed to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion, making Persson a billionaire. He then left the company after the deal was finalised in November. Since leaving Mojang, Persson has worked on several small projects. On 23 June 2014 he founded a company with Porsér called Rubberbrain AB; the company had no games by 2021, despite spending SEK 60 million. The company was relaunched as Bitshift Entertainment, LLC on 28 March 2024. Persson expressed interest in creating a new video game studio in 2020, and in developing virtual reality games. He has also since created a series of narrative-driven immersive events called ".party()", which uses extensive visual effects and has been hosted in multiple cities. At the beginning of 2025 Persson decided to create a spiritual successor to Minecraft, referred to as "Minecraft 2", in response to the results of a poll on X. However, after speaking to his team, he shortly went against this in favour of developing the other choice on his Twitter poll, a roguelike titled Levers and Chests. Games Persson's most popular creation is the survival sandbox game Minecraft, which was first publicly available on 17 May 2009 and fully released on 18 November 2011. Persson left his job as a game developer to work on Minecraft full-time until completion. In early 2011, Mojang AB sold the one millionth copy of the game, several months later their second, and several more their third. Mojang hired several new staff members for the Minecraft team, while Persson passed the lead developer role to Jens Bergensten. He stopped working on Minecraft after a deal with Microsoft to sell Mojang for $2.5 billion. This brought his net worth to US$1.5 billion. Persson and Jakob Porsér came up with the idea for Scrolls including elements from board games and collectible card games. Persson noted that he will not be actively involved in development of the game and that Porsér will be developing it. Persson revealed on his Tumblr blog on 5 August 2011 that he was being sued by a Swedish law firm representing Bethesda Softworks over the trademarked name of Scrolls, claiming that it conflicted with their The Elder Scrolls series of games. On 17 August 2011 Persson challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 tournament to decide the outcome of the naming dispute. On 27 September 2011 Persson confirmed that the lawsuit was going to court. ZeniMax Media, owner of Bethesda Softworks, announced the lawsuit's settlement in March 2012. The settlement allowed Mojang to continue using the Scrolls trademark. In 2018, Scrolls was made available free of charge and renamed to Caller's Bane. Cliffhorse is a humorous game programmed in two hours using the Unity game engine and free assets. The game took inspiration from Skyrim's physics engine, "the more embarrassing minimum-effort Greenlight games", Goat Simulator, and Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. The game was released to Microsoft Windows systems as an early access and honourware game on the first day of E3 2014, instructing users to donate Dogecoin to "buy" the game before downloading it. The game accumulated over 280,000 dogecoins. Following the end to his involvement with Minecraft, Persson began pre-production of an alternate reality space game set in the distant future in March 2012. On April Fools' Day Mojang launched a satirical website for Mars Effect (parody of Mass Effect), citing the lawsuit with Bethesda as an inspiration. However, the gameplay elements remained true and on 4 April, Mojang revealed 0x10c (pronounced "Ten to the C") as a space sandbox title. Persson officially halted game production in August 2013. However, C418, the composer of the game's soundtrack (as well as that of Minecraft), released an album of the work he had made for the game. In 2013, Persson made a free game called Shambles in the Unity game engine. Persson has also participated in several Ludum Dare 48-hour game making competitions. Personal life In 2011 Persson married Elin Zetterstrand, whom he had dated for four years before. Zetterstrand was a former moderator on the Minecraft forums. They had a daughter together, but by mid-2012, he began to see little of her. On 15 August 2012 he announced that he and his wife had filed for divorce. The divorce was finalised later that year. On 14 December 2011 Persson's father committed suicide with a handgun after drinking heavily. In an interview with The New Yorker, Persson said of his father: When I decided I wanted to quit my day job and work on my own games, he was the only person who supported my decision. He was proud of me and made sure I knew. When I added the monsters to Minecraft, he told me that the dark caves became too scary for him. But I think that was the only true criticism I ever heard from him. Persson later admitted that he himself suffered from depression and various highs and lows in his mood. Persson has criticised the stance of large game companies on piracy. He once stated that "piracy is not theft", viewing unauthorised downloads as potential future customers. Persson stated himself to be a member of the Pirate Party of Sweden in 2011. He is also a member of Mensa. He has donated to numerous charities, including Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Under his direction, Mojang spent a week developing Catacomb Snatch for the Humble Indie Bundle and raised US$458,248 for charity. He also donated $250,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2012. In 2011 he gave $3 million in dividends back to Mojang employees. According to Forbes, his net worth in 2023 was around $1.2 billion. In 2014 Persson was one of the biggest taxpayers in Sweden. Around 2014, he lived in a multi-level penthouse in Östermalm, Stockholm, an area he described as "where the rich people live". In December 2014 Persson purchased a home in Trousdale Estates, a neighbourhood in Beverly Hills, California, in the United States, for $70 million, a record sales price for Beverly Hills at the time. Persson reportedly outbid Beyoncé and Jay-Z for the property. Persson began receiving criticism for political and social opinions he expressed on social media as early as 2016. November 30, 2017 In 2017, he proposed a heterosexual pride holiday, and wrote that those who opposed the idea "deserve to be shot." After facing backlash, he deleted the tweets and rescinded his statements, writing, "So yeah, it's about pride of daring to express, not about pride of being who you are. I get it now." Later in the year, he wrote that feminism is a "social disease" and called the video game developer and feminist Zoë Quinn a "cunt", although he was generally critical of the GamerGate movement. He has described intersectional feminism as a "framework for bigotry" and the use of the word mansplaining as being sexist. Also in 2017, Persson tweeted that "It's okay to be white". Later that year, he stated that he believed in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. In 2019, he tweeted referencing QAnon, saying "Q is legit. Don't trust the media." Later in 2019, he tweeted in response to a pro-transgender internet meme that, "You are absolutely evil if you want to encourage delusion. What happened to not stigmatizing mental illness?" He then also promoted claims that people were fined for "using the wrong pronoun". However, after facing backlash, he tweeted a day afterwards that he had "no idea what [being trans is] like of course, but it's inspiring as hell when people open up and choose to actually be who they know themselves as. Not because it's a cool choice, because it's a big step. I gues [sic] that's actually cool nvm". Later that year, Microsoft removed two mentions of Persson's name in the "19w13a" snapshot of Minecraft and did not invite him to the 10-year anniversary celebration of the game. A spokesperson for Microsoft stated that his views "do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang". He is still mentioned in the End Poem ("a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus").[citation needed] Awards References External links |
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Contents Minecraft Minecraft is a sandbox game developed and published by Mojang Studios. Following its initial public alpha release in 2009, it was formally released in 2011 for personal computers. The game has since been ported to numerous platforms, including mobile devices and various video game consoles. In Minecraft, players explore a procedurally generated world with virtually infinite terrain made up of voxels (cubes). They can discover and extract raw materials, craft tools and items, build structures, fight hostile mobs, and cooperate with or compete against other players in multiplayer. The game's large community offers a wide variety of user-generated content, such as modifications, servers, player skins, texture packs, and custom maps, which add new game mechanics and possibilities. Originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java programming language, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten was handed control over the game's development following its full release. In 2014, Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion; Xbox Game Studios hold the publishing rights for the Bedrock Edition, the unified cross-platform version which evolved from the Pocket Edition codebase[i] and replaced the legacy console versions. Bedrock is updated concurrently with Mojang's original Java Edition, although with numerous, generally small, differences. Minecraft is the best-selling video game in history with over 350 million copies sold. It has received critical acclaim, winning several awards and being cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. Social media, parodies, adaptations, merchandise, and the annual Minecon conventions have played prominent roles in popularizing it. The wider Minecraft franchise includes several spin-off games, such as Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft Dungeons, and Minecraft Legends. A film adaptation, titled A Minecraft Movie, was released in 2025 and became the second highest-grossing video game film of all time. Gameplay Minecraft is a 3D sandbox video game that has no required goals to accomplish, giving players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. The game features an optional achievement system. Gameplay is in the first-person perspective by default, but players have the option of third-person perspectives. The game world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes, referred to as blocks—representing various materials, such as dirt, stone, ores, tree trunks, water, and lava. The core gameplay revolves around picking up and placing these objects. These blocks are arranged in a voxel grid, while players can move freely around the world. Players can break, or mine, blocks and then place them elsewhere, enabling them to build things. Very few blocks are affected by gravity, instead maintaining their voxel position in the air. Players can also craft a wide variety of items, such as armor, which mitigates damage from attacks; weapons (such as swords or bows and arrows), which allow monsters and animals to be killed more easily; and tools (such as pickaxes or shovels), which break certain types of blocks more quickly. Some items have multiple tiers depending on the material used to craft them, with higher-tier items being more effective and durable. They may also freely craft helpful blocks—such as furnaces which can cook food and smelt ores, and torches that produce light—or exchange items with villagers (NPC) through trading emeralds for different goods and vice versa. The game has an inventory system, allowing players to carry a limited number of items. The in-game time system follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting for 20 real-time minutes. The game also contains a material called redstone, which can be used to make primitive mechanical devices, electrical circuits, and logic gates, allowing for the construction of many complex systems. New players are given a randomly selected default character skin out of nine possibilities, including Steve or Alex, but are able to create and upload their own skins. Players encounter various mobs (short for mobile entities) including animals, villagers, and hostile creatures. Passive mobs, such as cows, pigs, and chickens, spawn during the daytime and can be hunted for food and crafting materials, while hostile mobs—including large spiders, witches, skeletons, and zombies—spawn during nighttime or in dark places such as caves. Some hostile mobs, such as zombies and skeletons, burn under the sun if they have no headgear and are not standing in water. Other creatures unique to Minecraft include the creeper (an exploding creature that sneaks up on the player) and the enderman (a creature with the ability to teleport as well as pick up and place blocks). There are also variants of mobs that spawn in different conditions; for example, zombies have husk and drowned variants that spawn in deserts and oceans, respectively. The Minecraft environment is procedurally generated as players explore it using a map seed that is randomly chosen at the time of world creation (or manually specified by the player). Divided into biomes representing different environments with unique resources and structures, worlds are designed to be effectively infinite in traditional gameplay, though technical limits on the player have existed throughout development, both intentionally and not. Implementation of horizontally infinite generation initially resulted in a glitch termed the "Far Lands" at over 12 million blocks away from the world center, where terrain generated as wall-like, fissured patterns. The Far Lands and associated glitches were considered the effective edge of the world until they were resolved, with the current horizontal limit instead being a special impassable barrier called the world border, located 30 million blocks away. Vertical space is comparatively limited, with an unbreakable bedrock layer at the bottom and a building limit several hundred blocks into the sky. Minecraft features three independent dimensions accessible through portals and providing alternate game environments. The Overworld is the starting dimension and represents the real world, with a terrestrial surface setting including plains, mountains, forests, oceans, caves, and small sources of lava. The Nether is a hell-like underworld dimension accessed via an obsidian portal and composed mainly of lava. Mobs that populate the Nether include shrieking, fireball-shooting ghasts, alongside anthropomorphic pigs called piglins and their zombified counterparts. Piglins in particular have a bartering system, where players can give them gold ingots and receive items in return. Structures known as Nether Fortresses generate in the Nether, containing mobs such as wither skeletons and blazes, which can drop blaze rods needed to access the End dimension. The player can also choose to build an optional boss mob known as the Wither, using skulls obtained from wither skeletons and soul sand. The End can be reached through an end portal, consisting of twelve end portal frames. End portals are found in underground structures in the Overworld known as strongholds. To find strongholds, players must craft eyes of ender using an ender pearl and blaze powder. Eyes of ender can then be thrown, traveling in the direction of the stronghold. Once the player reaches the stronghold, they can place eyes of ender into each portal frame to activate the end portal. The dimension consists of islands floating in a dark, bottomless void. A boss enemy called the Ender Dragon guards the largest, central island. Killing the dragon opens access to an exit portal, which, when entered, cues the game's ending credits and the End Poem, a roughly 1,500-word work written by Irish novelist Julian Gough, which takes about nine minutes to scroll past, is the game's only narrative text, and the only text of significant length directed at the player.: 10–12 At the conclusion of the credits, the player is teleported back to their respawn point and may continue the game indefinitely. In Survival mode, players have to gather natural resources such as wood and stone found in the environment in order to craft certain blocks and items. Depending on the difficulty, monsters spawn in darker areas outside a certain radius of the character, requiring players to build a shelter in order to survive at night. The mode also has a health bar which is depleted by attacks from mobs, falls, drowning, falling into lava, suffocation, starvation, and other events. Players also have a hunger bar, which must be periodically refilled by eating food in-game unless the player is playing on peaceful difficulty. If the hunger bar is empty, the player starves. Health replenishes when players have a full hunger bar or continuously on peaceful. Upon losing all health, players die. The items in the players' inventories are dropped unless the game is reconfigured not to do so. Players then re-spawn at their spawn point, which by default is where players first spawn in the game and can be changed by sleeping in a bed or using a respawn anchor. Dropped items can be recovered if players can reach them before they despawn after 5 minutes. Players may acquire experience points (commonly referred to as "xp" or "exp") by killing mobs and other players, mining, smelting ores, animal breeding, and cooking food. Experience can then be spent on enchanting tools, armor and weapons. Enchanted items are generally more powerful, last longer, or have other special effects. The game features two more game modes based on Survival, known as Hardcore mode and Adventure mode. Hardcore mode plays identically to Survival mode, but with the game's difficulty setting locked to "Hard" and with permadeath, forcing them to delete the world or explore it as a spectator after dying. Adventure mode was added to the game in a post-launch update, and prevents the player from directly modifying the game's world. It was designed primarily for use in custom maps, allowing map designers to let players experience it as intended. In Creative mode, players have access to an infinite number of all resources and items in the game through the inventory menu and can place or mine them instantly. Players can toggle the ability to fly freely around the game world at will, and their characters usually do not take any damage nor are affected by hunger. The game mode helps players focus on building and creating projects of any size without disturbance. Multiplayer in Minecraft enables multiple players to interact and communicate with each other on a single world. It is available through direct game-to-game multiplayer, local area network (LAN) play, local split screen (console-only), and servers (player-hosted and business-hosted). Players can run their own server by making a realm, using a host provider, hosting one themselves or connect directly to another player's game via Xbox Live, PlayStation Network or Nintendo Switch Online. Single-player worlds have LAN support, allowing players to join a world on locally interconnected computers without a server setup. Minecraft multiplayer servers are guided by server operators, who have access to server commands such as setting the time of day and teleporting players. Operators can also set up restrictions concerning which usernames or IP addresses are allowed or disallowed to enter the server. Multiplayer servers have a wide range of activities, with some servers having their own unique rules and customs. The largest and most popular server is Hypixel, which has been visited by over 14 million unique players. Player versus player combat (PvP) can be enabled to allow fighting between players. In 2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service intended to enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and safely without having to set up their own. Unlike a standard server, only invited players can join Realms servers, and these servers do not use server addresses. Minecraft: Java Edition Realms server owners can invite up to twenty people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at a time. Minecraft Realms server owners can invite up to 3,000 people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at one time. The Minecraft: Java Edition Realms servers do not support user-made plugins, but players can play custom Minecraft maps. Minecraft Bedrock Realms servers support user-made add-ons, resource packs, behavior packs, and custom Minecraft maps. At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016, support for cross-platform play between Windows 10, iOS, and Android platforms was added through Realms starting in June 2016, with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch support to come later in 2017, and support for virtual reality devices. On 31 July 2017, Mojang released the beta version of the update allowing cross-platform play. Nintendo Switch support for Realms was released in July 2018. The modding community consists of fans, users and third-party programmers. Using a variety of application program interfaces that have arisen over time, they have produced a wide variety of downloadable content for Minecraft, such as modifications, texture packs and custom maps. Modifications of the Minecraft code, called mods, add a variety of gameplay changes, ranging from new blocks, items, and mobs to entire arrays of mechanisms. The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as mini-maps, waypoints, and durability counters, to ones that add to the game elements from other video games and media. While a variety of mod frameworks were independently developed by reverse engineering the code, Mojang has also enhanced vanilla Minecraft with official frameworks for modification, allowing the production of community-created resource packs, which alter certain game elements including textures and sounds. Players can also create their own "maps" (custom world save files) that often contain specific rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to play. Mojang added an adventure mode in August 2012 and "command blocks" in October 2012, which were created specially for custom maps in Java Edition. Data packs, introduced in version 1.13 of the Java Edition, allow further customization, including the ability to add new achievements, dimensions, functions, loot tables, predicates, recipes, structures, tags, and world generation. The Xbox 360 Edition supported downloadable content, which was available to purchase via the Xbox Games Store; these content packs usually contained additional character skins. It later received support for texture packs in its twelfth title update while introducing "mash-up packs", which combined texture packs with skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface. The first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the Xbox 360 Edition was released on 4 September 2013, and was themed after the Mass Effect franchise. Unlike Java Edition, however, the Xbox 360 Edition did not support player-made mods or custom maps. A cross-promotional resource pack based on the Super Mario franchise by Nintendo was released exclusively for the Wii U Edition worldwide on 17 May 2016, and later bundled free with the Nintendo Switch Edition at launch. Another based on Fallout was released on consoles that December, and for Windows and Mobile in April 2017. In April 2018, malware was discovered in several downloadable user-made Minecraft skins for use with the Java Edition of the game. Avast stated that nearly 50,000 accounts were infected, and when activated, the malware would attempt to reformat the user's hard drive. Mojang promptly patched the issue, and released a statement stating that "the code would not be run or read by the game itself", and would run only when the image containing the skin itself was opened. In June 2017, Mojang released the "1.1 Discovery Update" to the Pocket Edition of the game, which later became the Bedrock Edition. The update introduced the "Marketplace", a catalogue of purchasable user-generated content intended to give Minecraft creators "another way to make a living from the game". Various skins, maps, texture packs and add-ons from different creators can be bought with "Minecoins", a digital currency that is purchased with real money. Additionally, users can access specific content with a subscription service titled "Marketplace Pass". Alongside content from independent creators, the Marketplace also houses items published by Mojang and Microsoft themselves, as well as official collaborations between Minecraft and other intellectual properties. By 2022, the Marketplace had over 1.7 billion content downloads, generating over $500 million in revenue. Development Before creating Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson was a game developer at King, where he worked until March 2009. At King, he primarily developed browser games and learned several programming languages. During his free time, he prototyped his own games, often drawing inspiration from other titles, and was an active participant on the TIGSource forums for independent developers. One such project was "RubyDung", a base-building game inspired by Dwarf Fortress, but with an isometric, three-dimensional perspective similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon. Among the features in RubyDung that he explored was a first-person view similar to Dungeon Keeper, though he ultimately discarded this idea, feeling the graphics were too pixelated at the time. Around March 2009, Persson left King and joined jAlbum, while continuing to work on his prototypes. Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game first released in April 2009, inspired Persson's vision for RubyDung's future direction. Infiniminer heavily influenced the visual style of gameplay, including bringing back the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals. However, unlike Infiniminer, Persson wanted Minecraft to have RPG elements. The first public alpha build of Minecraft was released on 17 May 2009 on TIGSource. Over the years, Persson regularly released test builds that added new features, including tools, mobs, and entire new dimensions. In 2011, partly due to the game's rising popularity, Persson decided to release a full 1.0 version—a second part of the "Adventure Update"—on 18 November 2011. Shortly after, Persson stepped down from development, handing the project's lead to Jens "Jeb" Bergensten. On 15 September 2014, Microsoft, the developer behind the Microsoft Windows operating system and Xbox video game console, announced a $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang, which included the Minecraft intellectual property. Persson had suggested the deal on Twitter, asking a corporation to buy his stake in the game after receiving criticism for enforcing terms in the game's end-user license agreement (EULA), which had been in place for the past three years. According to Persson, Mojang CEO Carl Manneh received a call from a Microsoft executive shortly after the tweet, asking if Persson was serious about a deal. Mojang was also approached by other companies including Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts. The deal with Microsoft was arbitrated on 6 November 2014 and led to Persson becoming one of Forbes' "World's Billionaires". After 2014, Minecraft's primary versions received usually annual major updates—free to players who have purchased the game— each primarily centered around a specific theme. For instance, version 1.13, the Update Aquatic, focused on ocean-related features, while version 1.16, the Nether Update, introduced significant changes to the Nether dimension. However, in late 2024, Mojang announced a shift in their update strategy; rather than releasing large updates annually, they opted for a more frequent release schedule with smaller, incremental updates, stating, "We know that you want new Minecraft content more often." The Bedrock Edition has also received regular updates, now matching the themes of the Java Edition updates. Other versions of the game, such as various console editions and the Pocket Edition, were either merged into Bedrock or discontinued and have not received further updates. On 7 May 2019, coinciding with Minecraft's 10th anniversary, a JavaScript recreation of an old 2009 Java Edition build named Minecraft Classic was made available to play online for free. On 16 April 2020, a Bedrock Edition-exclusive beta version of Minecraft, called Minecraft RTX, was released by Nvidia. It introduced physically-based rendering, real-time path tracing, and DLSS for RTX-enabled GPUs. The public release was made available on 8 December 2020. Path tracing can only be enabled in supported worlds, which can be downloaded for free via the in-game Minecraft Marketplace, with a texture pack from Nvidia's website, or with compatible third-party texture packs. It cannot be enabled by default with any texture pack on any world. Initially, Minecraft RTX was affected by many bugs, display errors, and instability issues. On 22 March 2025, a new visual mode called Vibrant Visuals, an optional graphical overhaul similar to Minecraft RTX, was announced. It promises modern rendering features—such as dynamic shadows, screen space reflections, volumetric fog, and bloom—without the need of RTX-capable hardware. Vibrant Visuals was released as a part of the Chase the Skies update on 17 June 2025 for Bedrock Edition and is planned to release on Java Edition at a later date. Development began for the original edition of Minecraft—then known as Cave Game, and now known as the Java Edition—in May 2009,[k] and ended on 13 May, when Persson released a test video on YouTube of an early version of the game, dubbed the "Cave game tech test" or the "Cave game tech demo". The game was named Minecraft: Order of the Stone the next day, after a suggestion made by a player. "Order of the Stone" came from the webcomic The Order of the Stick, and "Minecraft" was chosen "because it's a good name". The title was later shortened to just Minecraft, omitting the subtitle. Persson completed the game's base programming over a weekend in May 2009, and private testing began on TigIRC on 16 May. The first public release followed on 17 May 2009 as a developmental version shared on the TIGSource forums. Based on feedback from forum users, Persson continued updating the game. This initial public build later became known as Classic. Further developmental phases—dubbed Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev—were released throughout 2009 and 2010. The first major update, known as Alpha, was released on 30 June 2010. At the time, Persson was still working a day job at jAlbum but later resigned to focus on Minecraft full-time as sales of the alpha version surged. Updates were distributed automatically, introducing new blocks, items, mobs, and changes to game mechanics such as water flow. With revenue generated from the game, Persson founded Mojang, a video game studio, alongside former colleagues Jakob Porser and Carl Manneh. On 11 December 2010, Persson announced that Minecraft would enter its beta phase on 20 December. He assured players that bug fixes and all pre-release updates would remain free. As development progressed, Mojang expanded, hiring additional employees to work on the project. The game officially exited beta and launched in full on 18 November 2011. On 1 December 2011, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took full creative control over Minecraft, replacing Persson as lead designer. On 28 February 2012, Mojang announced the hiring of the developers behind Bukkit, a popular developer API for Minecraft servers, to improve Minecraft's support of server modifications. This move included Mojang taking apparent ownership of the CraftBukkit server mod, though this apparent acquisition later became controversial, and its legitimacy was questioned due to CraftBukkit's open-source nature and licensing under the GNU General Public License and Lesser General Public License. In August 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released as an early alpha for the Xperia Play via the Android Market, later expanding to other Android devices on 8 October 2011. The iOS version followed on 17 November 2011. A port was made available for Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft acquired Mojang. Unlike Java Edition, Pocket Edition initially focused on Minecraft's creative building and basic survival elements but lacked many features of the PC version. Bergensten confirmed on Twitter that the Pocket Edition was written in C++ rather than Java, as iOS does not support Java. On 10 December 2014, a port of Pocket Edition was released for Windows Phone 8.1. In July 2015, a port of the Pocket Edition to Windows 10 was released as the Windows 10 Edition, with full crossplay to other Pocket versions. In January 2017, Microsoft announced that it would no longer maintain the Windows Phone versions of Pocket Edition. On 20 September 2017, with the "Better Together Update", the Pocket Edition was ported to the Xbox One, and was renamed to the Bedrock Edition. The console versions of Minecraft debuted with the Xbox 360 edition, developed by 4J Studios and released on 9 May 2012. Announced as part of the Xbox Live Arcade NEXT promotion, this version introduced a redesigned crafting system, a new control interface, in-game tutorials, split-screen multiplayer, and online play via Xbox Live. Unlike the PC version, its worlds were finite, bordered by invisible walls. Initially, the Xbox 360 version resembled outdated PC versions but received updates to bring it closer to Java Edition before eventually being discontinued. The Xbox One version launched on 5 September 2014, featuring larger worlds and support for more players. Minecraft expanded to PlayStation platforms with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 editions released on 17 December 2013 and 4 September 2014, respectively. Originally planned as a PS4 launch title, it was delayed before its eventual release. A PlayStation Vita version followed in October 2014. Like the Xbox versions, the PlayStation editions were developed by 4J Studios. Nintendo platforms received Minecraft: Wii U Edition on 17 December 2015, with a physical release in North America on 17 June 2016 and in Europe on 30 June. The Nintendo Switch version launched via the eShop on 11 May 2017. During a Nintendo Direct presentation on 13 September 2017, Nintendo announced that Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition, based on the Pocket Edition, would be available for download immediately after the livestream, and a physical copy available on a later date. The game is compatible only with the New Nintendo 3DS or New Nintendo 2DS XL systems and does not work with the original 3DS or 2DS systems. On 20 September 2017, the Better Together Update introduced Bedrock Edition across Xbox One, Windows 10, VR, and mobile platforms, enabling cross-play between these versions. Bedrock Edition later expanded to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, with the latter receiving the update in December 2019, allowing cross-platform play for users with a free Xbox Live account. The Bedrock Edition released a native version for PlayStation 5 on 22 October 2024, while the Xbox Series X/S version launched on 17 June 2025. On 18 December 2018, the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and Wii U versions of Minecraft received their final update and would later become known as "Legacy Console Editions". On 15 January 2019, the New Nintendo 3DS version of Minecraft received its final update, effectively becoming discontinued as well. An educational version of Minecraft, designed for use in schools, launched on 1 November 2016. It is available on Android, ChromeOS, iPadOS, iOS, MacOS, and Windows. On 20 August 2018, Mojang announced that it would bring Education Edition to iPadOS in Autumn 2018. It was released to the App Store on 6 September 2018. On 27 March 2019, it was announced that it would be operated by JD.com in China. On 26 June 2020, a public beta for the Education Edition was made available to Google Play Store compatible Chromebooks. The full game was released to the Google Play Store for Chromebooks on 7 August 2020. On 20 May 2016, China Edition (also known as My World) was announced as a localized edition for China, where it was released under a licensing agreement between NetEase and Mojang. The PC edition was released for public testing on 8 August 2017. The iOS version was released on 15 September 2017, and the Android version was released on 12 October 2017. The PC edition is based on the original Java Edition, while the iOS and Android mobile versions are based on the Bedrock Edition. The edition is free-to-play and had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. This version of Bedrock Edition is exclusive to Microsoft's Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems. The beta release for Windows 10 launched on the Windows Store on 29 July 2015. After nearly a year and a half in beta, Microsoft fully released the version on 19 December 2016. Called the "Ender Update", this release implemented new features to this version of Minecraft like world templates and add-on packs. On 7 June 2022, the Java and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft were merged into a single bundle for purchase on Windows; those who owned one version would automatically gain access to the other version. Both game versions would otherwise remain separate. Around 2011, prior to Minecraft's full release, Mojang collaborated with The Lego Group to create a Lego brick-based Minecraft game called Brickcraft. This would have modified the base Minecraft game to use Lego bricks, which meant adapting the basic 1×1 block to account for larger pieces typically used in Lego sets. Persson worked on an early version called "Project Rex Kwon Do", named after the character of the same name from the film Napoleon Dynamite. Although Lego approved the project and Mojang assigned two developers for six months, it was canceled due to the Lego Group's demands, according to Mojang's Daniel Kaplan. Lego considered buying Mojang to complete the game, but when Microsoft offered over $2 billion for the company, Lego stepped back, unsure of Minecraft's potential. On 26 June 2025, a build of Brickcraft dated 28 June 2012 was published on a community archive website Omniarchive. Initially, Markus Persson planned to support the Oculus Rift with a Minecraft port. However, after Facebook acquired Oculus in 2013, he abruptly canceled the plans, stating, "Facebook creeps me out." In 2016, a community-made mod, Minecraft VR, added VR support for Java Edition, followed by Vivecraft for HTC Vive. Later that year, Microsoft introduced official Oculus Rift support for Windows 10 Edition, leading to the discontinuation of the Minecraft VR mod due to trademark complaints. Vivecraft was endorsed by Minecraft VR contributors for its Rift support. Also available is a Gear VR version, titled Minecraft: Gear VR Edition. Windows Mixed Reality support was added in 2017. On 7 September 2020, Mojang Studios announced that the PlayStation 4 Bedrock version would receive PlayStation VR support later that month. In September 2024, the Minecraft team announced they would no longer support PlayStation VR, which received its final update in March 2025. Music and sound design Minecraft's music and sound effects were produced by German musician Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418. To create the sound effects for the game, Rosenfeld made extensive use of Foley techniques. On learning the processes for the game, he remarked, "Foley's an interesting thing, and I had to learn its subtleties. Early on, I wasn't that knowledgeable about it. It's a whole trial-and-error process. You just make a sound and eventually you go, 'Oh my God, that's it! Get the microphone!' There's no set way of doing anything at all." He reminisced on creating the in-game sound for grass blocks, stating "It turns out that to make grass sounds you don't actually walk on grass and record it, because grass sounds like nothing. What you want to do is get a VHS, break it apart, and just lightly touch the tape." According to Rosenfeld, his favorite sound to design for the game was the hisses of spiders. He elaborates, "I like the spiders. Recording that was a whole day of me researching what a spider sounds like. Turns out, there are spiders that make little screeching sounds, so I think I got this recording of a fire hose, put it in a sampler, and just pitched it around until it sounded like a weird spider was talking to you." Many of the sound design decisions by Rosenfeld were done accidentally or spontaneously. The creeper notably lacks any specific noises apart from a loud fuse-like sound when about to explode; Rosenfeld later recalled "That was just a complete accident by Markus and me [sic]. We just put in a placeholder sound of burning a matchstick. It seemed to work hilariously well, so we kept it." On other sounds, such as those of the zombie, Rosenfeld remarked, "I actually never wanted the zombies so scary. I intentionally made them sound comical. It's nice to hear that they work so well [...]." Rosenfeld remarked that the sound engine was "terrible" to work with, remembering "If you had two song files at once, it [the game engine] would actually crash. There were so many more weird glitches like that the guys never really fixed because they were too busy with the actual game and not the sound engine." The background music in Minecraft consists of instrumental ambient music. To compose the music of Minecraft, Rosenfeld used the package from Ableton Live, along with several additional plug-ins. Speaking on them, Rosenfeld said "They can be pretty much everything from an effect to an entire orchestra. Additionally, I've got some synthesizers that are attached to the computer. Like a Moog Voyager, Dave Smith Prophet 08 and a Virus TI." On 4 March 2011, Rosenfeld released a soundtrack titled Minecraft – Volume Alpha; it includes most of the tracks featured in Minecraft, as well as other music not featured in the game. Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku chose the music in Minecraft as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011. On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second official soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Beta, which included the music that was added in a 2013 "Music Update" for the game. A physical release of Volume Alpha, consisting of CDs, black vinyl, and limited-edition transparent green vinyl LPs, was issued by indie electronic label Ghostly International on 21 August 2015. On 14 August 2020, Ghostly released Volume Beta on CD and vinyl, with alternate color LPs and lenticular cover pressings released in limited quantities. The final update Rosenfeld worked on was 2018's 1.13 Update Aquatic. His music remained the only music in the game until 2020's "Nether Update", introducing pieces from Lena Raine. Since then, other composers have made contributions, including Kumi Tanioka, Samuel Åberg, Aaron Cherof, and Amos Roddy, with Raine remaining as the new primary composer. Ownership of all music besides Rosenfeld's independently released albums has been retained by Microsoft, with their label publishing all of the other artists' releases. Gareth Coker also composed some of the music for the game's mini games from the Legacy Console editions. Rosenfeld had stated his intent to create a third album of music for the game in a 2015 interview with Fact, and confirmed its existence in a 2017 tweet, stating that his work on the record as of then had tallied up to be longer than the previous two albums combined, which in total clocks in at over 3 hours and 18 minutes. However, due to licensing issues with Microsoft, the third volume has since not seen release. On 8 January 2021, Rosenfeld was asked in an interview with Anthony Fantano whether or not there was still a third volume of his music intended for release. Rosenfeld responded, saying, "I have something—I consider it finished—but things have become complicated, especially as Minecraft is now a big property, so I don't know." Reception Minecraft has received critical acclaim, with praise for the creative freedom it grants players in-game, as well as the ease of enabling emergent gameplay. Critics have expressed enjoyment in Minecraft's complex crafting system, commenting that it is an important aspect of the game's open-ended gameplay. Most publications were impressed by the game's "blocky" graphics, with IGN describing them as "instantly memorable". Reviewers also liked the game's adventure elements, noting that the game creates a good balance between exploring and building. The game's multiplayer feature has been generally received favorably, with IGN commenting that "adventuring is always better with friends". Jaz McDougall of PC Gamer said Minecraft is "intuitively interesting and contagiously fun, with an unparalleled scope for creativity and memorable experiences". It has been regarded as having introduced millions of children to the digital world, insofar as its basic game mechanics are logically analogous to computer commands. IGN was disappointed about the troublesome steps needed to set up multiplayer servers, calling it a "hassle". Critics also said that visual glitches occur periodically. Despite its release out of beta in 2011, GameSpot said the game had an "unfinished feel", adding that some game elements seem "incomplete or thrown together in haste". A review of the alpha version, by Scott Munro of the Daily Record, called it "already something special" and urged readers to buy it. Jim Rossignol of Rock Paper Shotgun also recommended the alpha of the game, calling it "a kind of generative 8-bit Lego Stalker". On 17 September 2010, gaming webcomic Penny Arcade began a series of comics and news posts about the addictiveness of the game. The Xbox 360 version was generally received positively by critics, but did not receive as much praise as the PC version. Although reviewers were disappointed by the lack of features such as mod support and content from the PC version, they acclaimed the port's addition of a tutorial and in-game tips and crafting recipes, saying that they make the game more user-friendly. The Xbox One Edition was one of the best received ports, being praised for its relatively large worlds. The PlayStation 3 Edition also received generally favorable reviews, being compared to the Xbox 360 Edition and praised for its well-adapted controls. The PlayStation 4 edition was the best received port to date, being praised for having 36 times larger worlds than the PlayStation 3 edition and described as nearly identical to the Xbox One edition. The PlayStation Vita Edition received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for its technical limitations. The Wii U version received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for a lack of GamePad integration. The 3DS version received mixed reviews, being criticized for its high price, technical issues, and lack of cross-platform play. The Nintendo Switch Edition received fairly positive reviews from critics, being praised, like other modern ports, for its relatively larger worlds. Minecraft: Pocket Edition initially received mixed reviews from critics. Although reviewers appreciated the game's intuitive controls, they were disappointed by the lack of content. The inability to collect resources and craft items, as well as the limited types of blocks and lack of hostile mobs, were especially criticized. After updates added more content, Pocket Edition started receiving more positive reviews. Reviewers complimented the controls and the graphics, but still noted a lack of content. Minecraft surpassed over a million purchases less than a month after entering its beta phase in early 2011. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth, and various unpaid references in popular media such as the Penny Arcade webcomic. By April 2011, Persson estimated that Minecraft had made €23 million (US$33 million) in revenue, with 800,000 sales of the alpha version of the game, and over 1 million sales of the beta version. In November 2011, prior to the game's full release, Minecraft beta surpassed 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. By March 2012, Minecraft had become the 6th best-selling PC game of all time. As of 10 October 2014[update], the game had sold 17 million copies on PC, becoming the best-selling PC game of all time. On 25 February 2014, the game reached 100 million registered users. By May 2019, 180 million copies had been sold across all platforms, making it the single best-selling video game of all time. The free-to-play Minecraft China version had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. By 2023, the game had sold over 300 million copies. As of April 2025, Minecraft has sold over 350 million copies. The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft became profitable within the first day of the game's release in 2012, when the game broke the Xbox Live sales records with 400,000 players online. Within a week of being on the Xbox Live Marketplace, Minecraft sold a million copies. GameSpot announced in December 2012 that Minecraft sold over 4.48 million copies since the game debuted on Xbox Live Arcade in May 2012. In 2012, Minecraft was the most purchased title on Xbox Live Arcade; it was also the fourth most played title on Xbox Live based on average unique users per day. As of 4 April 2014[update], the Xbox 360 version has sold 12 million copies. In addition, Minecraft: Pocket Edition has reached a figure of 21 million in sales. The PlayStation 3 Edition sold one million copies in five weeks. The release of the game's PlayStation Vita version boosted Minecraft sales by 79%, outselling both PS3 and PS4 debut releases and becoming the largest Minecraft launch on a PlayStation console. The PS Vita version sold 100,000 digital copies in Japan within the first two months of release, according to an announcement by SCE Japan Asia. By January 2015, 500,000 digital copies of Minecraft were sold in Japan across all PlayStation platforms, with a surge in primary school children purchasing the PS Vita version. As of 2022, the Vita version has sold over 1.65 million physical copies in Japan, making it the best-selling Vita game in the country. Minecraft helped improve Microsoft's total first-party revenue by $63 million for the 2015 second quarter. The game, including all of its versions, had over 112 million monthly active players by September 2019. On its 11th anniversary in May 2020, the company announced that Minecraft had reached over 200 million copies sold across platforms with over 126 million monthly active players. By April 2021, the number of active monthly users had climbed to 140 million. In July 2010, PC Gamer listed Minecraft as the fourth-best game to play at work. In December of that year, Good Game selected Minecraft as their choice for Best Downloadable Game of 2010, Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it the "game of the year". Indie DB awarded the game the 2010 Indie of the Year award as chosen by voters, in addition to two out of five Editor's Choice awards for Most Innovative and Best Singleplayer Indie. It was also awarded Game of the Year by PC Gamer UK. The game was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Technical Excellence, and Excellence in Design awards at the March 2011 Independent Games Festival and won the Grand Prize and the community-voted Audience Award. At Game Developers Choice Awards 2011, Minecraft won awards in the categories for Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game and Innovation Award, winning every award for which it was nominated. It also won GameCity's video game arts award. On 5 May 2011, Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that would be displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of The Art of Video Games exhibit that opened on 16 March 2012. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Minecraft won the award for Best Independent Game and was nominated in the Best PC Game category. In 2012, at the British Academy Video Games Awards, Minecraft was nominated in the GAME Award of 2011 category and Persson received The Special Award. In 2012, Minecraft XBLA was awarded a Golden Joystick Award in the Best Downloadable Game category, and a TIGA Games Industry Award in the Best Arcade Game category. In 2013, it was nominated as the family game of the year at the British Academy Video Games Awards. During the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft for "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year". Minecraft Console Edition won the award for TIGA Game Of The Year in 2014. In 2015, the game placed 6th on USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list. In 2016, Minecraft placed 6th on Time's The 50 Best Video Games of All Time list. Minecraft was nominated for the 2013 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite App, but lost to Temple Run. It was nominated for the 2014 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Video Game, but lost to Just Dance 2014. The game later won the award for the Most Addicting Game at the 2015 Kids' Choice Awards. In addition, the Java Edition was nominated for "Favorite Video Game" at the 2018 Kids' Choice Awards, while the game itself won the "Still Playing" award at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards, as well as the "Favorite Video Game" award at the 2020 Kids' Choice Awards. Minecraft also won "Stream Game of the Year" at inaugural Streamer Awards in 2021. The game later garnered a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award nomination for Favorite Video Game in 2021, and won the same category in 2022 and 2023. At the Golden Joystick Awards 2025, it won the Still Playing Award - PC and Console. Minecraft has been subject to several notable controversies. In June 2014, Mojang announced that it would begin enforcing the portion of Minecraft's end-user license agreement (EULA) which prohibits servers from giving in-game advantages to players in exchange for donations or payments. Spokesperson Owen Hill stated that servers could still require players to pay a fee to access the server and could sell in-game cosmetic items. The change was supported by Persson, citing emails he received from parents of children who had spent hundreds of dollars on servers. The Minecraft community and server owners protested, arguing that the EULA's terms were more broad than Mojang was claiming, that the crackdown would force smaller servers to shut down for financial reasons, and that Mojang was suppressing competition for its own Minecraft Realms subscription service. The controversy contributed to Notch's decision to sell Mojang. In 2020, Mojang announced an eventual change to the Java Edition to require a login from a Microsoft account rather than a Mojang account, the latter of which would be sunsetted. This also required Java Edition players to create Xbox network Gamertags. Mojang defended the move to Microsoft accounts by saying that improved security could be offered, including two-factor authentication, blocking cyberbullies in chat, and improved parental controls. The community responded with intense backlash, citing various technical difficulties encountered in the process and how account migration would be mandatory, even for those who do not play on servers. As of 10 March 2022, Microsoft required that all players migrate in order to maintain access the Java Edition of Minecraft. Mojang announced a deadline of 19 September 2023 for account migration, after which all legacy Mojang accounts became inaccessible and unable to be migrated. In June 2022, Mojang added a player-reporting feature in Java Edition. Players could report other players on multiplayer servers for sending messages prohibited by the Xbox Live Code of Conduct; report categories included profane language,[l] substance abuse, hate speech, threats of violence, and nudity. If a player was found to be in violation of Xbox Community Standards, they would be banned from all servers for a specific period of time or permanently. The update containing the report feature (1.19.1) was released on 27 July 2022. Mojang received substantial backlash and protest from community members, one of the most common complaints being that banned players would be forbidden from joining any server, even private ones. Others took issue to what they saw as Microsoft increasing control over its player base and exercising censorship, leading some to start a hashtag #saveminecraft and dub the version "1.19.84", a reference to the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The "Mob Vote" was an online event organized by Mojang in which the Minecraft community voted between three original mob concepts; initially, the winning mob was to be implemented in a future update, while the losing mobs were scrapped, though after the first mob vote this was changed, and losing mobs would now have a chance to come to the game in the future. The first Mob Vote was held during Minecon Earth 2017 and became an annual event starting with Minecraft Live 2020. The Mob Vote was often criticized for forcing players to choose one mob instead of implementing all three, causing divisions and flaming within the community, and potentially allowing internet bots and Minecraft content creators with large fanbases to conduct vote brigading. The Mob Vote was also blamed for a perceived lack of new content added to Minecraft since Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang in 2014. The 2023 Mob Vote featured three passive mobs—the crab, the penguin, and the armadillo—with voting scheduled to start on 13 October. In response, a Change.org petition was created on 6 October, demanding that Mojang eliminate the Mob Vote and instead implement all three mobs going forward. The petition received approximately 445,000 signatures by 13 October and was joined by calls to boycott the Mob Vote, as well as a partially tongue-in-cheek "revolutionary" propaganda campaign in which sympathizers created anti-Mojang and pro-boycott posters in the vein of real 20th century propaganda posters. Mojang did not release an official response to the boycott, and the Mob Vote otherwise proceeded normally, with the armadillo winning the vote. In September 2024, as part of a blog post detailing their future plans for Minecraft's development, Mojang announced the Mob Vote would be retired. Cultural impact In September 2019, The Guardian classified Minecraft as the best video game of the 21st century to date, and in November 2019, Polygon called it the "most important game of the decade" in its 2010s "decade in review". In June 2020, Minecraft was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Minecraft is recognized as one of the first successful games to use an early access model to draw in sales prior to its full release version to help fund development. As Minecraft helped to bolster indie game development in the early 2010s, it also helped to popularize the use of the early access model in indie game development. Social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit have played a significant role in popularizing Minecraft. Research conducted by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania showed that one-third of Minecraft players learned about the game via Internet videos. In 2010, Minecraft-related videos began to gain influence on YouTube, often made by commentators. The videos usually contain screen-capture footage of the game and voice-overs. Common coverage in the videos includes creations made by players, walkthroughs of various tasks, and parodies of works in popular culture. By May 2012, over four million Minecraft-related YouTube videos had been uploaded. The game would go on to be a prominent fixture within YouTube's gaming scene during the entire 2010s; in 2014, it was the second-most searched term on the entire platform. By 2018, it was still YouTube's biggest game globally. Some popular commentators have received employment at Machinima, a now-defunct gaming video company that owned a highly watched entertainment channel on YouTube. The Yogscast is a British company that regularly produces Minecraft videos; their YouTube channel has attained billions of views, and their panel at Minecon 2011 had the highest attendance. Another well-known YouTube personality is Jordan Maron, known online as CaptainSparklez, who has also created many Minecraft music parodies, including "Revenge", a parody of Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love". Minecraft's popularity on YouTube was described by Polygon as quietly dominant, although in 2019, thanks in part to PewDiePie's playthroughs of the game, Minecraft experienced a visible uptick in popularity on the platform. Longer-running series include Far Lands or Bust, dedicated to reaching the obsolete "Far Lands" glitch by foot on an older version of the game. YouTube announced that on 14 December 2021 that the total amount of Minecraft-related views on the website had exceeded one trillion. Minecraft has been referenced by other video games, such as Torchlight II, Team Fortress 2, Borderlands 2, Choplifter HD, Super Meat Boy, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Binding of Isaac, The Stanley Parable, and FTL: Faster Than Light. Minecraft is officially represented in downloadable content for the crossover fighter Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with Steve as a playable character with a moveset including references to building, crafting, and redstone, alongside an Overworld-themed stage. It was also referenced by electronic music artist Deadmau5 in his performances. The game is also referenced heavily in "Informative Murder Porn", the second episode of the seventeenth season of the animated television series South Park. In 2025, A Minecraft Movie was released. It made $313 million in the box office in the first week, a record-breaking opening for a video game adaptation. Minecraft has been noted as a cultural touchstone for Generation Z, as many of the generation's members played the game at a young age. The possible applications of Minecraft have been discussed extensively, especially in the fields of computer-aided design (CAD) and education. In a panel at Minecon 2011, a Swedish developer discussed the possibility of using the game to redesign public buildings and parks, stating that rendering using Minecraft was much more user-friendly for the community, making it easier to envision the functionality of new buildings and parks. In 2012, a member of the Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab, Cody Sumter, said: "Notch hasn't just built a game. He's tricked 40 million people into learning to use a CAD program." Various software has been developed to allow virtual designs to be printed using professional 3D printers or personal printers such as MakerBot and RepRap. In September 2012, Mojang began the Block by Block project in cooperation with UN Habitat to create real-world environments in Minecraft. The project allows young people who live in those environments to participate in designing the changes they would like to see. Using Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the Minecraft servers and modify their own neighborhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's managing director, called the game "the perfect tool to facilitate this process", adding "The three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat's Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016." Mojang signed Minecraft building community, FyreUK, to help render the environments into Minecraft. The first pilot project began in Kibera, one of Nairobi's informal settlements and is in the planning phase. The Block by Block project is based on an earlier initiative started in October 2011, Mina Kvarter (My Block), which gave young people in Swedish communities a tool to visualize how they wanted to change their part of town. According to Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualize urban planning ideas without necessarily having a training in architecture. The ideas presented by the citizens were a template for political decisions. In April 2014, the Danish Geodata Agency generated all of Denmark in fullscale in Minecraft based on their own geodata. This is possible because Denmark is one of the flattest countries with the highest point at 171 meters (ranking as the country with the 30th smallest elevation span), where the limit in default Minecraft was around 192 meters above in-game sea level when the project was completed. Taking advantage of the game's accessibility where other websites are censored, the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders has used an open Minecraft server to create the Uncensored Library, a repository within the game of journalism by authors from countries (including Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam) who have been censored and arrested, such as Jamal Khashoggi. The neoclassical virtual building was created over about 250 hours by an international team of 24 people. Despite its unpredictable nature, Minecraft speedrunning, where players time themselves from spawning into a new world to reaching The End and defeating the Ender Dragon boss, is popular. Some speedrunners use a combination of mods, external programs, and debug menus, while other runners play the game in a more vanilla or more consistency-oriented way. Minecraft has been used in educational settings through initiatives such as MinecraftEdu, founded in 2011 to make the game affordable and accessible for schools in collaboration with Mojang. MinecraftEdu provided features allowing teachers to monitor student progress, including screenshot submissions as evidence of lesson completion, and by 2012 reported that approximately 250,000 students worldwide had access to the platform. Mojang also developed Minecraft: Education Edition with pre-built lesson plans for up to 30 students in a closed environment. Educators have used Minecraft to teach subjects such as history, language arts, and science through custom-built environments, including reconstructions of historical landmarks and large-scale models of biological structures such as animal cells. The introduction of redstone blocks enabled the construction of functional virtual machines such as a hard drive and an 8-bit computer. Mods have been created to use these mechanics for teaching programming. In 2014, the British Museum announced a project to reproduce its building and exhibits in Minecraft in collaboration with the public. Microsoft and Code.org have offered Minecraft-based tutorials and activities designed to teach programming, reporting by 2018 that more than 85 million children had used their resources. In 2025, the Musée de Minéralogie in Paris held a temporary exhibition titled "Minerals in Minecraft." Following the initial surge in popularity of Minecraft in 2010, other video games were criticised for having various similarities to Minecraft, and some were described as being "clones", often due to a direct inspiration from Minecraft, or a superficial similarity. Examples include Ace of Spades, CastleMiner, CraftWorld, FortressCraft, Terraria, BlockWorld 3D, Total Miner, and Luanti (formerly Minetest). David Frampton, designer of The Blockheads, reported that one failure of his 2D game was the "low resolution pixel art" that too closely resembled the art in Minecraft, which resulted in "some resistance" from fans. A homebrew adaptation of the alpha version of Minecraft for the Nintendo DS, titled DScraft, has been released; it has been noted for its similarity to the original game considering the technical limitations of the system. In response to Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang and their Minecraft IP, various developers announced further clone titles developed specifically for Nintendo's consoles, as they were the only major platforms not to officially receive Minecraft at the time. These clone titles include UCraft (Nexis Games), Cube Life: Island Survival (Cypronia), Discovery (Noowanda), Battleminer (Wobbly Tooth Games), Cube Creator 3D (Big John Games), and Stone Shire (Finger Gun Games). Despite this, the fears of fans were unfounded, with official Minecraft releases on Nintendo consoles eventually resuming. Markus Persson made another similar game, Minicraft, for a Ludum Dare competition in 2011. In 2025, Persson announced through a poll on his X account that he was considering developing a spiritual successor to Minecraft. He later clarified that he was "100% serious", and that he had "basically announced Minecraft 2". Within days, however, Persson cancelled the plans after speaking to his team. In November 2024, artificial intelligence companies Decart and Etched released Oasis, an artificially generated version of Minecraft, as a proof of concept. Every in-game element is completely AI-generated in real time and the model does not store world data, leading to "hallucinations" such as items and blocks appearing that were not there before. In January 2026, indie game developer Unomelon announced that their voxel sandbox game Allumeria would be playable in Steam Next Fest that year. On 10 February, Mojang issued a DMCA takedown of Allumeria on Steam through Valve, alleging the game was infringing on Minecraft's copyright. Some reports suggested that the takedown may have used an automatic AI copyright claiming service. The DMCA was later withdrawn. Minecon was an annual official fan convention dedicated to Minecraft. The first full Minecon was held in November 2011 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The event included the official launch of Minecraft; keynote speeches, including one by Persson; building and costume contests; Minecraft-themed breakout classes; exhibits by leading gaming and Minecraft-related companies; commemorative merchandise; and autograph and picture times with Mojang employees and well-known contributors from the Minecraft community. In 2016, Minecon was held in-person for the last time, with the following years featuring annual "Minecon Earth" livestreams on minecraft.net and YouTube instead. These livestreams, later rebranded to "Minecraft Live", included the mob/biome votes, and announcements of new game updates. In 2025, "Minecraft Live" became a biannual event as part of Minecraft's changing update schedule.[citation needed] Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiamerica] | [TOKENS: 4461] |
Contents Laurasia Laurasia (/lɔːˈreɪʒə, -ʃə/) was the more northern of two large landmasses that formed part of the Pangaea supercontinent from around 335 to 175 million years ago (Mya), the other being Gondwana. It separated from Gondwana 215 to 175 Mya (beginning in the late Triassic period) during the breakup of Pangaea, drifting further north after the split and finally broke apart with the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean c. 56 Mya. The name is a portmanteau of Laurentia and Eurasia. Laurentia, Avalonia, Baltica, and a series of smaller terranes, collided in the Caledonian orogeny c. 400 Mya to form Laurussia. Laurussia then collided with Gondwana to form Pangaea. Kazakhstania and Siberia were then added to Pangaea 290–300 Mya to form Laurasia. Laurasia finally became an independent continental mass when Pangaea broke up into Gondwana and Laurasia. Terminology and origin of the concept Laurentia, the Palaeozoic core of North America and continental fragments that now make up part of Europe, collided with Baltica and Avalonia in the Caledonian orogeny from c. 430–420 Mya to form Laurussia. In the Late Carboniferous, Laurussia and Gondwana collided and formed Pangaea. Siberia and Kazakhstania finally collided with Baltica in the Late Permian to form Laurasia. A series of continental blocks that now form East Asia and Southeast Asia were later added to Laurasia. In 1904–1909, Austrian geologist Eduard Suess proposed that the continents in the Southern Hemisphere were once merged into a larger continent called Gondwana. In 1915, German meteorologist Alfred Wegener proposed the existence of a supercontinent that he called Pangaea. In 1937, South African geologist Alexander du Toit proposed that Pangaea was divided into two larger landmasses, Laurasia in the Northern Hemisphere and Gondwana in the Southern Hemisphere, separated by the Tethys Ocean. "Laurussia" was defined by Swiss geologist Peter Ziegler in 1988 as the merger between Laurentia and Baltica along the northern Caledonian suture. The "Old Red Continent" is an informal name often used for the Silurian-Carboniferous deposits in the central landmass of Laurussia. Several earlier supercontinents proposed and debated in the 1990s and later (e.g. Rodinia, Nuna, Nena) included earlier connections between Laurentia, Baltica, Siberia. These original connections apparently survived through one and possibly even two Wilson Cycles, though their intermittent duration and recurrent fit is debated. Proto-Laurasia Laurentia and Baltica first formed a continental mass known as Proto-Laurasia as part of the supercontinent Columbia which was assembled 2,100–1,800 Mya to encompass virtually all known Archaean continental blocks. Surviving sutures from this assembly are the Trans-Hudson orogen in Laurentia; Nagssugtoqidian orogen in Greenland; the Kola-Karelian (the northwest margin of the Svecofennian orogen) and the Volhyn–Central Russia orogen and Pachelma orogen (across western Russia) in Baltica, the Akitkan Orogen in Siberia. Additional Proterozoic crust was accreted 1,800–1,300 Mya, especially along the Laurentia-Greenland-Baltica margin. Laurentia and Baltica formed a coherent continental mass with southern Greenland and Labrador adjacent to the Arctic margin of Baltica. A magmatic arc extended from Laurentia through southern Greenland to northern Baltica. The breakup of Columbia began 1,600 Mya, including along the western margin of Laurentia and northern margin of Baltica (modern coordinates), and was completed c. 1,300–1,200 Mya, a period during which mafic dike swarms were emplaced, including MacKenzie and Sudbury in Laurentia. Traces left by large igneous provinces provide evidences for continental mergers during this period. Those related to Proto-Laurasia includes: In the vast majority of plate tectonic reconstructions, Laurentia formed the core of the supercontinent Rodinia, which formed 1,260-900 Mya. However, the exact fit of various continents within Rodinia is debated. In some reconstructions, Baltica was attached to Greenland along its Scandinavian margin while Amazonia was docked along Baltica's Tornquist margin. Australia and East Antarctica were located on Laurentia's western margin. Siberia was located near but at some distance from Laurentia's northern margin in most reconstructions. In the reconstruction of some Russian geologists, however, the southern margin (modern coordinates) of Siberia merged with the northern margin of Laurentia, and these two continents broke up along what is now the 3,000 km (1,900 mi)-long Central Asian Foldbelt no later than 570 Mya and traces of this breakup can still be found in the Franklin dike swarm in northern Canada and the Aldan Shield in Siberia. The Proto-Pacific opened and Rodinia began to breakup during the Neoproterozoic (c. 750–600 Mya) as Australia-Antarctica (East Gondwana) rifted from the western margin of Laurentia, while the rest of Rodinia (West Gondwana and Laurasia) rotated clockwise and drifted south. Earth subsequently underwent a series of glaciations – the Varanger (c. 650 Mya, also known as Snowball Earth) and the Rapitan and Ice Brook glaciations (c. 610–590 Mya) – both Laurentia and Baltica were located south of 30°S, with the South Pole located in eastern Baltica, and glacial deposits from this period have been found in Laurentia and Baltica but not in Siberia. A mantle plume (the Central Iapetus Magmatic Province) forced Laurentia and Baltica to separate ca. 650–600 Mya and the Iapetus Ocean opened between them. Laurentia then began to move quickly (20 cm/year (7.9 in/year)) north towards the Equator where it got stuck over a cold spot in the Proto-Pacific. Baltica remained near Gondwana in southern latitudes into the Ordovician. Laurentia, Baltica, and Siberia remained connected to each other within the short-lived, Precambrian-Cambrian supercontinent Pannotia or Greater Gondwana. At this time a series of continental blocks called as Peri-Gondwana, that now form parts of Asia, the Cathaysian terranes, namely Indochina, North China, South China , Cimmerian terranes, Sibumasu, Qiangtang, Lhasa, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey – were still attached to the Indian–Australian margin of Gondwana. Other blocks that now form part of southwestern Europe and North America from New England to Florida were still attached to the African-South American margin of Gondwana. This northward drift of terranes across the Tethys Ocean also included the Hunic terranes, now spread from Europe to China. Pannotia broke apart in the late Precambrian into Laurentia, Baltica, Siberia, Gondwana. A series of continental blocks, the Cadomian, Avalonian, Cathaysian, Cimmerian terranes, broke away from Gondwana and began to drift north. Euramerica/Laurussia Laurentia remained almost static near the Equator throughout the early Palaeozoic, separated from Baltica by the up to 3,000 km (1,900 mi)-wide Iapetus Ocean. In the Late Cambrian, the mid-ocean ridge in the Iapetus Ocean subducted beneath Gondwana which resulted in the opening of a series of large back-arc basins. During the Ordovician, these basins evolved into a new ocean, the Rheic Ocean, which separated a series of terranes – Avalonia, Carolinia, and Armorica – from Gondwana. Avalonia rifted from Gondwana in the Early Ordovician and collided with Baltica near the Ordovician–Silurian boundary (480–420 Mya). Baltica-Avalonia was then rotated and pushed north towards Laurentia. The collision between these continents closed the Iapetus Ocean and formed Laurussia, also known as Euramerica. Another historical term for this continent is the Old Red Continent or Old Red Sandstone Continent, in reference to abundant red beds of the Old Red Sandstone during the Devonian. The continent covered 37,000,000 km2 (14,000,000 sq mi) including several large Arctic continental blocks. With the Caledonian orogeny completed Laurussia was delimited thus: During the Devonian (416–359 Mya) the combined landmass of Baltica and Avalonia rotated around Laurentia, which remained static near the Equator. The Laurentian warm, shallow seas and on shelves a diverse assemblage of benthos evolved, including the largest trilobites exceeding 1 m (3 ft 3 in). The Old Red Sandstone Continent stretched across northern Laurentia and into Avalonia and Baltica but for most of the Devonian a narrow seaway formed a barrier where the North Atlantic would later open. Tetrapods evolved from fish in the Late Devonian, with the oldest known fossils from Greenland. Low sea-levels during the Early Devonian produced natural barriers in Laurussia which resulted in provincialism within the benthic fauna. In Laurentia the Transcontinental Arch divided brachiopods into two provinces, with one of them confined to a large embayment west of the Appalachians. By the Middle Devonian, these two provinces had been united into one and the closure of the Rheic Ocean finally united faunas across Laurussia. High plankton productivity from the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary resulted in anoxic events that left black shales in the basins of Laurentia. The subduction of the Iapetus Ocean resulted in the first contact between Laurussia and Gondwana in the Late Devonian and terminated in full collision or the Variscan orogeny in the early Carboniferous (340 Mya). The Variscan orogeny closed the Rheic Ocean (between Avalonia and Armorica) and the Proto-Tethys Ocean (between Armorica and Gondwana) to form the supercontinent Pangaea. The Variscan orogeny is complex and the exact timing and the order of the collisions between involved microcontinents has been debated for decades. Pangaea was completely assembled by the Permian except for the Asian blocks. The supercontinent was centred on the Equator during the Triassic and Jurassic, a period that saw the emergence of the Pangaean megamonsoon. Heavy rainfall resulted in high groundwater tables, in turn resulting in peat formation and extensive coal deposits. During the Cambrian and Early Ordovician, when wide oceans separated all major continents, only pelagic marine organisms, such as plankton, could move freely across the open ocean and therefore the oceanic gaps between continents are easily detected in the fossil records of marine bottom dwellers and non-marine species. By the Late Ordovician, when continents were pushed closer together closing the oceanic gaps, benthos (brachiopods and trilobites) could spread between continents while ostracods and fishes remained isolated. As Laurussia formed during the Devonian and Pangaea formed, fish species in both Laurussia and Gondwana began to migrate between continents and before the end of the Devonian similar species were found on both sides of what remained of the Variscan barrier. The oldest tree fossils are from the Middle Devonian pteridophyte Gilboa Fossil Forest in central Laurussia (today New York City, United States). In the late Carboniferous, Laurussia was centred on the Equator and covered by tropical rainforests, commonly referred to as the coal forests. By the Permian, the climate had become arid and these Carboniferous rainforests collapsed, lycopsids (giant mosses) were replaced by treeferns. In the dry climate a detritivorous fauna – including ringed worms, molluscs, and some arthropods – evolved and diversified, alongside other arthropods who were herbivorous and carnivorous, and tetrapods – insectivores and piscivores such as amphibians and early amniotes. Laurasia During the Carboniferous to Permian periods, Siberia, Kazakhstania, Baltica collided in the Uralian orogeny to form Laurasia. The Palaezoic-Mesozoic transition was marked by the reorganisation of Earth's tectonic plates which resulted in the assembly of Pangaea, and eventually its break-up. Caused by the detachment of subducted mantle slabs, this reorganisation resulted in rising mantle plumes that produced large igneous provinces when they reached the crust. This tectonic activity also resulted in the Permian–Triassic extinction event. Tentional stresses across Eurasia developed into a large system of rift basins (Urengoy, East Uralian-Turgay, Khudosey) and flood basalts in the West Siberian Basin, the Pechora Basin, South China. Laurasia and Gondwana were equal in size but had distinct geological histories. Gondwana was assembled before the formation of Pangaea, but the assembly of Laurasia occurred during and after the formation of the supercontinent. These differences resulted in different patterns of basin formation and transport of sediments. East Antarctica was the highest ground within Pangaea and produced sediments that were transported across eastern Gondwana but never reached Laurasia. During the Palaeozoic, c. 30–40% of Laurasia was covered by shallow marine water but only 10–20% of Gondwana was covered by shallow marine water. During the assembly of Pangaea, Laurasia grew as continental blocks broke off Gondwana's northern margin; pulled by old closing oceans in front of them and pushed by new opening oceans behind them. During the Neoproterozoic-Early Paleozoic break-up of Rodinia, the opening of the Proto-Tethys Ocean split the Asian blocks – Tarim, Qaidam, Alex, North China, South China – from the northern shores of Gondwana (north of India and Australia in modern coordinates) and the closure of the same ocean reassembled them along the same shores 500–460 Mya resulting in Gondwana at its largest extent. The break-up of Rodinia also resulted in the opening of the long-lived Paleo-Asian Ocean between Baltica and Siberia in the north and Tarim and North China in the south. The closure of this ocean is preserved in the Central Asian Orogenic Belt, the largest orogen on Earth. North China, South China, Indochina, Tarim broke off from Gondwana during the Silurian to Devonian periods; as the Paleo-Tethys Ocean opened behind them. Sibumasu and Qiantang and other Cimmerian continental fragments broke off in the Early Permian. Lhasa, Burma, Sikuleh, southwest Sumatra, West Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo, broke off during the Late Triassic-Late Jurassic. During the Carboniferous and Permian, Baltica first collided with Kazakhstania and Siberia, then North China with Mongolia and Siberia. By the middle Carboniferous, however, South China had already been in contact with North China long enough to allow floral exchange between the two continents. The Cimmerian blocks rifted from Gondwana in the Late Carboniferous. In the early Permian, the Neo-Tethys Ocean opened behind the Cimmerian terranes (Sibumasu, Qiantang, Lhasa) and, in the late Carboniferous, the Paleo-Tethys Ocean closed in front. The eastern branch of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean, however, remained opened while Siberia was added to Laurussia and Gondwana collided with Laurasia. When the eastern Palaeo-Tethys closed 250–230 Mya, a series of Asian blocks – Sibumasu, Indochina, South China, Qiantang, Lhasa – formed a separate southern Asian continent. This continent collided 240–220 Mya with a northern continent – North China, Qinling, Qilian, Qaidam, Alex, Tarim – along the Central China orogen to form a combined East Asian continent. The northern margins of the northern continent collided with Baltica and Siberia 310–250 Ma, and thus the formation of the East Asian continent marked Pangaea at its greatest extent. By this time, the rifting of western Pangaea had already begun. Pangaea split in two as the Tethys Seaway opened between Gondwana and Laurasia in the Late Jurassic. The fossil record, however, suggests the intermittent presence of a Trans-Tethys land bridge, though the location and duration of such a land bridge remains enigmatic. Pine trees evolved in the early Mesozoic c. 250 Mya and the pine genus originated in Laurasia in the Early Cretaceous c. 130 Mya in competition with faster growing flowering plants. Pines adapted to cold and arid climates in environments where the growing season was shorter or wildfire common; this evolution limited pine range to between 31° and 50° north and resulted in a split into two subgenera: Strobus adapted to stressful environments and Pinus to fire-prone landscapes. By the end of the Cretaceous, pines were established across Laurasia, from North America to East Asia. From the Triassic to the Early Jurassic, before the break-up of Pangaea, archosaurs (crurotarsans, pterosaurs and dinosaurs including birds) had a global distribution, especially crurotarsans, the group ancestral to the crocodilians. This cosmopolitanism ended as Gondwana fragmented and Laurasia was assembled. Pterosaur diversity reach a maximum in the Late Jurassic—Early Cretaceous and plate tectonic didn't affect the distribution of these flying reptiles. Crocodilian ancestors also diversified during the Early Cretaceous but were divided into Laurasian and Gondwanan populations; true crocodilians evolved from the former. The distribution of the three major groups of dinosaurs – the sauropods, theropods, and ornithischians – was similar to that of the crocodilians. East Asia remained isolated with endemic species including psittacosaurs (horned dinosaurs) and Ankylosauridae (club-tailed, armoured dinosaurs). Meanwhile, mammals slowly settled in Laurasia from Gondwana in the Triassic, the latter of which was the living area of their Permian ancestors. They split in two groups, with one returning to Gondwana (and stayed there after Pangaea split) while the other staying in Laurasia (until further descendants switched to Gondwana starting from the Jurassic). In the early Eocene, a peak in global warming led to a pan-Arctic fauna with alligators and amphibians present north of the Arctic Circle. In the early Paleogene, landbridges still connected continents, allowing land animals to migrate between them. On the other hand, submerged areas occasionally divided continents: the Turgai Strait separated Europe and Asia from the Middle Jurassic to the Oligocene and as this strait dried out, a massive faunal interchange took place and the resulting extinction event in Europe is known as the Grande Coupure. The Coraciiformes (an order of birds including kingfishers) evolved in Laurasia. While this group now has a mostly tropical distribution, they originated in the Arctic in the late Eocene c. 35 Mya from where they diversified across Laurasia and further south across the Equator. The placental mammal group of Laurasiatheria is named after Laurasia. In the Triassic–Early Jurassic (c. 200 Mya), the opening of the Central Atlantic Ocean was preceded by the formation of a series of large rift basins, such as the Newark Basin, between eastern North America, from what is today the Gulf of Mexico to Nova Scotia, and in Africa and Europe, from Morocco to Greenland. By c. 83 Mya spreading had begun in the North Atlantic between the Rockall Basin, a continental fragment sitting on top of the Eurasian Plate, and North America. By 56 Mya, Greenland had become an independent plate, separated from North America by the Labrador Sea-Baffin Bay Rift. By 33 Mya, spreading had ceased in the Labrador Sea and relocated to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The opening of the North Atlantic Ocean had effectively broken Laurasia in two. See also References Africa Antarctica Asia Australia Europe North America South America Afro-Eurasia Americas Eurasia Oceania |
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Contents Minecraft Minecraft is a sandbox game developed and published by Mojang Studios. Following its initial public alpha release in 2009, it was formally released in 2011 for personal computers. The game has since been ported to numerous platforms, including mobile devices and various video game consoles. In Minecraft, players explore a procedurally generated world with virtually infinite terrain made up of voxels (cubes). They can discover and extract raw materials, craft tools and items, build structures, fight hostile mobs, and cooperate with or compete against other players in multiplayer. The game's large community offers a wide variety of user-generated content, such as modifications, servers, player skins, texture packs, and custom maps, which add new game mechanics and possibilities. Originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java programming language, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten was handed control over the game's development following its full release. In 2014, Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion; Xbox Game Studios hold the publishing rights for the Bedrock Edition, the unified cross-platform version which evolved from the Pocket Edition codebase[i] and replaced the legacy console versions. Bedrock is updated concurrently with Mojang's original Java Edition, although with numerous, generally small, differences. Minecraft is the best-selling video game in history with over 350 million copies sold. It has received critical acclaim, winning several awards and being cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. Social media, parodies, adaptations, merchandise, and the annual Minecon conventions have played prominent roles in popularizing it. The wider Minecraft franchise includes several spin-off games, such as Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft Dungeons, and Minecraft Legends. A film adaptation, titled A Minecraft Movie, was released in 2025 and became the second highest-grossing video game film of all time. Gameplay Minecraft is a 3D sandbox video game that has no required goals to accomplish, giving players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. The game features an optional achievement system. Gameplay is in the first-person perspective by default, but players have the option of third-person perspectives. The game world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes, referred to as blocks—representing various materials, such as dirt, stone, ores, tree trunks, water, and lava. The core gameplay revolves around picking up and placing these objects. These blocks are arranged in a voxel grid, while players can move freely around the world. Players can break, or mine, blocks and then place them elsewhere, enabling them to build things. Very few blocks are affected by gravity, instead maintaining their voxel position in the air. Players can also craft a wide variety of items, such as armor, which mitigates damage from attacks; weapons (such as swords or bows and arrows), which allow monsters and animals to be killed more easily; and tools (such as pickaxes or shovels), which break certain types of blocks more quickly. Some items have multiple tiers depending on the material used to craft them, with higher-tier items being more effective and durable. They may also freely craft helpful blocks—such as furnaces which can cook food and smelt ores, and torches that produce light—or exchange items with villagers (NPC) through trading emeralds for different goods and vice versa. The game has an inventory system, allowing players to carry a limited number of items. The in-game time system follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting for 20 real-time minutes. The game also contains a material called redstone, which can be used to make primitive mechanical devices, electrical circuits, and logic gates, allowing for the construction of many complex systems. New players are given a randomly selected default character skin out of nine possibilities, including Steve or Alex, but are able to create and upload their own skins. Players encounter various mobs (short for mobile entities) including animals, villagers, and hostile creatures. Passive mobs, such as cows, pigs, and chickens, spawn during the daytime and can be hunted for food and crafting materials, while hostile mobs—including large spiders, witches, skeletons, and zombies—spawn during nighttime or in dark places such as caves. Some hostile mobs, such as zombies and skeletons, burn under the sun if they have no headgear and are not standing in water. Other creatures unique to Minecraft include the creeper (an exploding creature that sneaks up on the player) and the enderman (a creature with the ability to teleport as well as pick up and place blocks). There are also variants of mobs that spawn in different conditions; for example, zombies have husk and drowned variants that spawn in deserts and oceans, respectively. The Minecraft environment is procedurally generated as players explore it using a map seed that is randomly chosen at the time of world creation (or manually specified by the player). Divided into biomes representing different environments with unique resources and structures, worlds are designed to be effectively infinite in traditional gameplay, though technical limits on the player have existed throughout development, both intentionally and not. Implementation of horizontally infinite generation initially resulted in a glitch termed the "Far Lands" at over 12 million blocks away from the world center, where terrain generated as wall-like, fissured patterns. The Far Lands and associated glitches were considered the effective edge of the world until they were resolved, with the current horizontal limit instead being a special impassable barrier called the world border, located 30 million blocks away. Vertical space is comparatively limited, with an unbreakable bedrock layer at the bottom and a building limit several hundred blocks into the sky. Minecraft features three independent dimensions accessible through portals and providing alternate game environments. The Overworld is the starting dimension and represents the real world, with a terrestrial surface setting including plains, mountains, forests, oceans, caves, and small sources of lava. The Nether is a hell-like underworld dimension accessed via an obsidian portal and composed mainly of lava. Mobs that populate the Nether include shrieking, fireball-shooting ghasts, alongside anthropomorphic pigs called piglins and their zombified counterparts. Piglins in particular have a bartering system, where players can give them gold ingots and receive items in return. Structures known as Nether Fortresses generate in the Nether, containing mobs such as wither skeletons and blazes, which can drop blaze rods needed to access the End dimension. The player can also choose to build an optional boss mob known as the Wither, using skulls obtained from wither skeletons and soul sand. The End can be reached through an end portal, consisting of twelve end portal frames. End portals are found in underground structures in the Overworld known as strongholds. To find strongholds, players must craft eyes of ender using an ender pearl and blaze powder. Eyes of ender can then be thrown, traveling in the direction of the stronghold. Once the player reaches the stronghold, they can place eyes of ender into each portal frame to activate the end portal. The dimension consists of islands floating in a dark, bottomless void. A boss enemy called the Ender Dragon guards the largest, central island. Killing the dragon opens access to an exit portal, which, when entered, cues the game's ending credits and the End Poem, a roughly 1,500-word work written by Irish novelist Julian Gough, which takes about nine minutes to scroll past, is the game's only narrative text, and the only text of significant length directed at the player.: 10–12 At the conclusion of the credits, the player is teleported back to their respawn point and may continue the game indefinitely. In Survival mode, players have to gather natural resources such as wood and stone found in the environment in order to craft certain blocks and items. Depending on the difficulty, monsters spawn in darker areas outside a certain radius of the character, requiring players to build a shelter in order to survive at night. The mode also has a health bar which is depleted by attacks from mobs, falls, drowning, falling into lava, suffocation, starvation, and other events. Players also have a hunger bar, which must be periodically refilled by eating food in-game unless the player is playing on peaceful difficulty. If the hunger bar is empty, the player starves. Health replenishes when players have a full hunger bar or continuously on peaceful. Upon losing all health, players die. The items in the players' inventories are dropped unless the game is reconfigured not to do so. Players then re-spawn at their spawn point, which by default is where players first spawn in the game and can be changed by sleeping in a bed or using a respawn anchor. Dropped items can be recovered if players can reach them before they despawn after 5 minutes. Players may acquire experience points (commonly referred to as "xp" or "exp") by killing mobs and other players, mining, smelting ores, animal breeding, and cooking food. Experience can then be spent on enchanting tools, armor and weapons. Enchanted items are generally more powerful, last longer, or have other special effects. The game features two more game modes based on Survival, known as Hardcore mode and Adventure mode. Hardcore mode plays identically to Survival mode, but with the game's difficulty setting locked to "Hard" and with permadeath, forcing them to delete the world or explore it as a spectator after dying. Adventure mode was added to the game in a post-launch update, and prevents the player from directly modifying the game's world. It was designed primarily for use in custom maps, allowing map designers to let players experience it as intended. In Creative mode, players have access to an infinite number of all resources and items in the game through the inventory menu and can place or mine them instantly. Players can toggle the ability to fly freely around the game world at will, and their characters usually do not take any damage nor are affected by hunger. The game mode helps players focus on building and creating projects of any size without disturbance. Multiplayer in Minecraft enables multiple players to interact and communicate with each other on a single world. It is available through direct game-to-game multiplayer, local area network (LAN) play, local split screen (console-only), and servers (player-hosted and business-hosted). Players can run their own server by making a realm, using a host provider, hosting one themselves or connect directly to another player's game via Xbox Live, PlayStation Network or Nintendo Switch Online. Single-player worlds have LAN support, allowing players to join a world on locally interconnected computers without a server setup. Minecraft multiplayer servers are guided by server operators, who have access to server commands such as setting the time of day and teleporting players. Operators can also set up restrictions concerning which usernames or IP addresses are allowed or disallowed to enter the server. Multiplayer servers have a wide range of activities, with some servers having their own unique rules and customs. The largest and most popular server is Hypixel, which has been visited by over 14 million unique players. Player versus player combat (PvP) can be enabled to allow fighting between players. In 2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service intended to enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and safely without having to set up their own. Unlike a standard server, only invited players can join Realms servers, and these servers do not use server addresses. Minecraft: Java Edition Realms server owners can invite up to twenty people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at a time. Minecraft Realms server owners can invite up to 3,000 people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at one time. The Minecraft: Java Edition Realms servers do not support user-made plugins, but players can play custom Minecraft maps. Minecraft Bedrock Realms servers support user-made add-ons, resource packs, behavior packs, and custom Minecraft maps. At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016, support for cross-platform play between Windows 10, iOS, and Android platforms was added through Realms starting in June 2016, with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch support to come later in 2017, and support for virtual reality devices. On 31 July 2017, Mojang released the beta version of the update allowing cross-platform play. Nintendo Switch support for Realms was released in July 2018. The modding community consists of fans, users and third-party programmers. Using a variety of application program interfaces that have arisen over time, they have produced a wide variety of downloadable content for Minecraft, such as modifications, texture packs and custom maps. Modifications of the Minecraft code, called mods, add a variety of gameplay changes, ranging from new blocks, items, and mobs to entire arrays of mechanisms. The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as mini-maps, waypoints, and durability counters, to ones that add to the game elements from other video games and media. While a variety of mod frameworks were independently developed by reverse engineering the code, Mojang has also enhanced vanilla Minecraft with official frameworks for modification, allowing the production of community-created resource packs, which alter certain game elements including textures and sounds. Players can also create their own "maps" (custom world save files) that often contain specific rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to play. Mojang added an adventure mode in August 2012 and "command blocks" in October 2012, which were created specially for custom maps in Java Edition. Data packs, introduced in version 1.13 of the Java Edition, allow further customization, including the ability to add new achievements, dimensions, functions, loot tables, predicates, recipes, structures, tags, and world generation. The Xbox 360 Edition supported downloadable content, which was available to purchase via the Xbox Games Store; these content packs usually contained additional character skins. It later received support for texture packs in its twelfth title update while introducing "mash-up packs", which combined texture packs with skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface. The first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the Xbox 360 Edition was released on 4 September 2013, and was themed after the Mass Effect franchise. Unlike Java Edition, however, the Xbox 360 Edition did not support player-made mods or custom maps. A cross-promotional resource pack based on the Super Mario franchise by Nintendo was released exclusively for the Wii U Edition worldwide on 17 May 2016, and later bundled free with the Nintendo Switch Edition at launch. Another based on Fallout was released on consoles that December, and for Windows and Mobile in April 2017. In April 2018, malware was discovered in several downloadable user-made Minecraft skins for use with the Java Edition of the game. Avast stated that nearly 50,000 accounts were infected, and when activated, the malware would attempt to reformat the user's hard drive. Mojang promptly patched the issue, and released a statement stating that "the code would not be run or read by the game itself", and would run only when the image containing the skin itself was opened. In June 2017, Mojang released the "1.1 Discovery Update" to the Pocket Edition of the game, which later became the Bedrock Edition. The update introduced the "Marketplace", a catalogue of purchasable user-generated content intended to give Minecraft creators "another way to make a living from the game". Various skins, maps, texture packs and add-ons from different creators can be bought with "Minecoins", a digital currency that is purchased with real money. Additionally, users can access specific content with a subscription service titled "Marketplace Pass". Alongside content from independent creators, the Marketplace also houses items published by Mojang and Microsoft themselves, as well as official collaborations between Minecraft and other intellectual properties. By 2022, the Marketplace had over 1.7 billion content downloads, generating over $500 million in revenue. Development Before creating Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson was a game developer at King, where he worked until March 2009. At King, he primarily developed browser games and learned several programming languages. During his free time, he prototyped his own games, often drawing inspiration from other titles, and was an active participant on the TIGSource forums for independent developers. One such project was "RubyDung", a base-building game inspired by Dwarf Fortress, but with an isometric, three-dimensional perspective similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon. Among the features in RubyDung that he explored was a first-person view similar to Dungeon Keeper, though he ultimately discarded this idea, feeling the graphics were too pixelated at the time. Around March 2009, Persson left King and joined jAlbum, while continuing to work on his prototypes. Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game first released in April 2009, inspired Persson's vision for RubyDung's future direction. Infiniminer heavily influenced the visual style of gameplay, including bringing back the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals. However, unlike Infiniminer, Persson wanted Minecraft to have RPG elements. The first public alpha build of Minecraft was released on 17 May 2009 on TIGSource. Over the years, Persson regularly released test builds that added new features, including tools, mobs, and entire new dimensions. In 2011, partly due to the game's rising popularity, Persson decided to release a full 1.0 version—a second part of the "Adventure Update"—on 18 November 2011. Shortly after, Persson stepped down from development, handing the project's lead to Jens "Jeb" Bergensten. On 15 September 2014, Microsoft, the developer behind the Microsoft Windows operating system and Xbox video game console, announced a $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang, which included the Minecraft intellectual property. Persson had suggested the deal on Twitter, asking a corporation to buy his stake in the game after receiving criticism for enforcing terms in the game's end-user license agreement (EULA), which had been in place for the past three years. According to Persson, Mojang CEO Carl Manneh received a call from a Microsoft executive shortly after the tweet, asking if Persson was serious about a deal. Mojang was also approached by other companies including Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts. The deal with Microsoft was arbitrated on 6 November 2014 and led to Persson becoming one of Forbes' "World's Billionaires". After 2014, Minecraft's primary versions received usually annual major updates—free to players who have purchased the game— each primarily centered around a specific theme. For instance, version 1.13, the Update Aquatic, focused on ocean-related features, while version 1.16, the Nether Update, introduced significant changes to the Nether dimension. However, in late 2024, Mojang announced a shift in their update strategy; rather than releasing large updates annually, they opted for a more frequent release schedule with smaller, incremental updates, stating, "We know that you want new Minecraft content more often." The Bedrock Edition has also received regular updates, now matching the themes of the Java Edition updates. Other versions of the game, such as various console editions and the Pocket Edition, were either merged into Bedrock or discontinued and have not received further updates. On 7 May 2019, coinciding with Minecraft's 10th anniversary, a JavaScript recreation of an old 2009 Java Edition build named Minecraft Classic was made available to play online for free. On 16 April 2020, a Bedrock Edition-exclusive beta version of Minecraft, called Minecraft RTX, was released by Nvidia. It introduced physically-based rendering, real-time path tracing, and DLSS for RTX-enabled GPUs. The public release was made available on 8 December 2020. Path tracing can only be enabled in supported worlds, which can be downloaded for free via the in-game Minecraft Marketplace, with a texture pack from Nvidia's website, or with compatible third-party texture packs. It cannot be enabled by default with any texture pack on any world. Initially, Minecraft RTX was affected by many bugs, display errors, and instability issues. On 22 March 2025, a new visual mode called Vibrant Visuals, an optional graphical overhaul similar to Minecraft RTX, was announced. It promises modern rendering features—such as dynamic shadows, screen space reflections, volumetric fog, and bloom—without the need of RTX-capable hardware. Vibrant Visuals was released as a part of the Chase the Skies update on 17 June 2025 for Bedrock Edition and is planned to release on Java Edition at a later date. Development began for the original edition of Minecraft—then known as Cave Game, and now known as the Java Edition—in May 2009,[k] and ended on 13 May, when Persson released a test video on YouTube of an early version of the game, dubbed the "Cave game tech test" or the "Cave game tech demo". The game was named Minecraft: Order of the Stone the next day, after a suggestion made by a player. "Order of the Stone" came from the webcomic The Order of the Stick, and "Minecraft" was chosen "because it's a good name". The title was later shortened to just Minecraft, omitting the subtitle. Persson completed the game's base programming over a weekend in May 2009, and private testing began on TigIRC on 16 May. The first public release followed on 17 May 2009 as a developmental version shared on the TIGSource forums. Based on feedback from forum users, Persson continued updating the game. This initial public build later became known as Classic. Further developmental phases—dubbed Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev—were released throughout 2009 and 2010. The first major update, known as Alpha, was released on 30 June 2010. At the time, Persson was still working a day job at jAlbum but later resigned to focus on Minecraft full-time as sales of the alpha version surged. Updates were distributed automatically, introducing new blocks, items, mobs, and changes to game mechanics such as water flow. With revenue generated from the game, Persson founded Mojang, a video game studio, alongside former colleagues Jakob Porser and Carl Manneh. On 11 December 2010, Persson announced that Minecraft would enter its beta phase on 20 December. He assured players that bug fixes and all pre-release updates would remain free. As development progressed, Mojang expanded, hiring additional employees to work on the project. The game officially exited beta and launched in full on 18 November 2011. On 1 December 2011, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took full creative control over Minecraft, replacing Persson as lead designer. On 28 February 2012, Mojang announced the hiring of the developers behind Bukkit, a popular developer API for Minecraft servers, to improve Minecraft's support of server modifications. This move included Mojang taking apparent ownership of the CraftBukkit server mod, though this apparent acquisition later became controversial, and its legitimacy was questioned due to CraftBukkit's open-source nature and licensing under the GNU General Public License and Lesser General Public License. In August 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released as an early alpha for the Xperia Play via the Android Market, later expanding to other Android devices on 8 October 2011. The iOS version followed on 17 November 2011. A port was made available for Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft acquired Mojang. Unlike Java Edition, Pocket Edition initially focused on Minecraft's creative building and basic survival elements but lacked many features of the PC version. Bergensten confirmed on Twitter that the Pocket Edition was written in C++ rather than Java, as iOS does not support Java. On 10 December 2014, a port of Pocket Edition was released for Windows Phone 8.1. In July 2015, a port of the Pocket Edition to Windows 10 was released as the Windows 10 Edition, with full crossplay to other Pocket versions. In January 2017, Microsoft announced that it would no longer maintain the Windows Phone versions of Pocket Edition. On 20 September 2017, with the "Better Together Update", the Pocket Edition was ported to the Xbox One, and was renamed to the Bedrock Edition. The console versions of Minecraft debuted with the Xbox 360 edition, developed by 4J Studios and released on 9 May 2012. Announced as part of the Xbox Live Arcade NEXT promotion, this version introduced a redesigned crafting system, a new control interface, in-game tutorials, split-screen multiplayer, and online play via Xbox Live. Unlike the PC version, its worlds were finite, bordered by invisible walls. Initially, the Xbox 360 version resembled outdated PC versions but received updates to bring it closer to Java Edition before eventually being discontinued. The Xbox One version launched on 5 September 2014, featuring larger worlds and support for more players. Minecraft expanded to PlayStation platforms with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 editions released on 17 December 2013 and 4 September 2014, respectively. Originally planned as a PS4 launch title, it was delayed before its eventual release. A PlayStation Vita version followed in October 2014. Like the Xbox versions, the PlayStation editions were developed by 4J Studios. Nintendo platforms received Minecraft: Wii U Edition on 17 December 2015, with a physical release in North America on 17 June 2016 and in Europe on 30 June. The Nintendo Switch version launched via the eShop on 11 May 2017. During a Nintendo Direct presentation on 13 September 2017, Nintendo announced that Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition, based on the Pocket Edition, would be available for download immediately after the livestream, and a physical copy available on a later date. The game is compatible only with the New Nintendo 3DS or New Nintendo 2DS XL systems and does not work with the original 3DS or 2DS systems. On 20 September 2017, the Better Together Update introduced Bedrock Edition across Xbox One, Windows 10, VR, and mobile platforms, enabling cross-play between these versions. Bedrock Edition later expanded to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, with the latter receiving the update in December 2019, allowing cross-platform play for users with a free Xbox Live account. The Bedrock Edition released a native version for PlayStation 5 on 22 October 2024, while the Xbox Series X/S version launched on 17 June 2025. On 18 December 2018, the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and Wii U versions of Minecraft received their final update and would later become known as "Legacy Console Editions". On 15 January 2019, the New Nintendo 3DS version of Minecraft received its final update, effectively becoming discontinued as well. An educational version of Minecraft, designed for use in schools, launched on 1 November 2016. It is available on Android, ChromeOS, iPadOS, iOS, MacOS, and Windows. On 20 August 2018, Mojang announced that it would bring Education Edition to iPadOS in Autumn 2018. It was released to the App Store on 6 September 2018. On 27 March 2019, it was announced that it would be operated by JD.com in China. On 26 June 2020, a public beta for the Education Edition was made available to Google Play Store compatible Chromebooks. The full game was released to the Google Play Store for Chromebooks on 7 August 2020. On 20 May 2016, China Edition (also known as My World) was announced as a localized edition for China, where it was released under a licensing agreement between NetEase and Mojang. The PC edition was released for public testing on 8 August 2017. The iOS version was released on 15 September 2017, and the Android version was released on 12 October 2017. The PC edition is based on the original Java Edition, while the iOS and Android mobile versions are based on the Bedrock Edition. The edition is free-to-play and had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. This version of Bedrock Edition is exclusive to Microsoft's Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems. The beta release for Windows 10 launched on the Windows Store on 29 July 2015. After nearly a year and a half in beta, Microsoft fully released the version on 19 December 2016. Called the "Ender Update", this release implemented new features to this version of Minecraft like world templates and add-on packs. On 7 June 2022, the Java and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft were merged into a single bundle for purchase on Windows; those who owned one version would automatically gain access to the other version. Both game versions would otherwise remain separate. Around 2011, prior to Minecraft's full release, Mojang collaborated with The Lego Group to create a Lego brick-based Minecraft game called Brickcraft. This would have modified the base Minecraft game to use Lego bricks, which meant adapting the basic 1×1 block to account for larger pieces typically used in Lego sets. Persson worked on an early version called "Project Rex Kwon Do", named after the character of the same name from the film Napoleon Dynamite. Although Lego approved the project and Mojang assigned two developers for six months, it was canceled due to the Lego Group's demands, according to Mojang's Daniel Kaplan. Lego considered buying Mojang to complete the game, but when Microsoft offered over $2 billion for the company, Lego stepped back, unsure of Minecraft's potential. On 26 June 2025, a build of Brickcraft dated 28 June 2012 was published on a community archive website Omniarchive. Initially, Markus Persson planned to support the Oculus Rift with a Minecraft port. However, after Facebook acquired Oculus in 2013, he abruptly canceled the plans, stating, "Facebook creeps me out." In 2016, a community-made mod, Minecraft VR, added VR support for Java Edition, followed by Vivecraft for HTC Vive. Later that year, Microsoft introduced official Oculus Rift support for Windows 10 Edition, leading to the discontinuation of the Minecraft VR mod due to trademark complaints. Vivecraft was endorsed by Minecraft VR contributors for its Rift support. Also available is a Gear VR version, titled Minecraft: Gear VR Edition. Windows Mixed Reality support was added in 2017. On 7 September 2020, Mojang Studios announced that the PlayStation 4 Bedrock version would receive PlayStation VR support later that month. In September 2024, the Minecraft team announced they would no longer support PlayStation VR, which received its final update in March 2025. Music and sound design Minecraft's music and sound effects were produced by German musician Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418. To create the sound effects for the game, Rosenfeld made extensive use of Foley techniques. On learning the processes for the game, he remarked, "Foley's an interesting thing, and I had to learn its subtleties. Early on, I wasn't that knowledgeable about it. It's a whole trial-and-error process. You just make a sound and eventually you go, 'Oh my God, that's it! Get the microphone!' There's no set way of doing anything at all." He reminisced on creating the in-game sound for grass blocks, stating "It turns out that to make grass sounds you don't actually walk on grass and record it, because grass sounds like nothing. What you want to do is get a VHS, break it apart, and just lightly touch the tape." According to Rosenfeld, his favorite sound to design for the game was the hisses of spiders. He elaborates, "I like the spiders. Recording that was a whole day of me researching what a spider sounds like. Turns out, there are spiders that make little screeching sounds, so I think I got this recording of a fire hose, put it in a sampler, and just pitched it around until it sounded like a weird spider was talking to you." Many of the sound design decisions by Rosenfeld were done accidentally or spontaneously. The creeper notably lacks any specific noises apart from a loud fuse-like sound when about to explode; Rosenfeld later recalled "That was just a complete accident by Markus and me [sic]. We just put in a placeholder sound of burning a matchstick. It seemed to work hilariously well, so we kept it." On other sounds, such as those of the zombie, Rosenfeld remarked, "I actually never wanted the zombies so scary. I intentionally made them sound comical. It's nice to hear that they work so well [...]." Rosenfeld remarked that the sound engine was "terrible" to work with, remembering "If you had two song files at once, it [the game engine] would actually crash. There were so many more weird glitches like that the guys never really fixed because they were too busy with the actual game and not the sound engine." The background music in Minecraft consists of instrumental ambient music. To compose the music of Minecraft, Rosenfeld used the package from Ableton Live, along with several additional plug-ins. Speaking on them, Rosenfeld said "They can be pretty much everything from an effect to an entire orchestra. Additionally, I've got some synthesizers that are attached to the computer. Like a Moog Voyager, Dave Smith Prophet 08 and a Virus TI." On 4 March 2011, Rosenfeld released a soundtrack titled Minecraft – Volume Alpha; it includes most of the tracks featured in Minecraft, as well as other music not featured in the game. Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku chose the music in Minecraft as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011. On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second official soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Beta, which included the music that was added in a 2013 "Music Update" for the game. A physical release of Volume Alpha, consisting of CDs, black vinyl, and limited-edition transparent green vinyl LPs, was issued by indie electronic label Ghostly International on 21 August 2015. On 14 August 2020, Ghostly released Volume Beta on CD and vinyl, with alternate color LPs and lenticular cover pressings released in limited quantities. The final update Rosenfeld worked on was 2018's 1.13 Update Aquatic. His music remained the only music in the game until 2020's "Nether Update", introducing pieces from Lena Raine. Since then, other composers have made contributions, including Kumi Tanioka, Samuel Åberg, Aaron Cherof, and Amos Roddy, with Raine remaining as the new primary composer. Ownership of all music besides Rosenfeld's independently released albums has been retained by Microsoft, with their label publishing all of the other artists' releases. Gareth Coker also composed some of the music for the game's mini games from the Legacy Console editions. Rosenfeld had stated his intent to create a third album of music for the game in a 2015 interview with Fact, and confirmed its existence in a 2017 tweet, stating that his work on the record as of then had tallied up to be longer than the previous two albums combined, which in total clocks in at over 3 hours and 18 minutes. However, due to licensing issues with Microsoft, the third volume has since not seen release. On 8 January 2021, Rosenfeld was asked in an interview with Anthony Fantano whether or not there was still a third volume of his music intended for release. Rosenfeld responded, saying, "I have something—I consider it finished—but things have become complicated, especially as Minecraft is now a big property, so I don't know." Reception Minecraft has received critical acclaim, with praise for the creative freedom it grants players in-game, as well as the ease of enabling emergent gameplay. Critics have expressed enjoyment in Minecraft's complex crafting system, commenting that it is an important aspect of the game's open-ended gameplay. Most publications were impressed by the game's "blocky" graphics, with IGN describing them as "instantly memorable". Reviewers also liked the game's adventure elements, noting that the game creates a good balance between exploring and building. The game's multiplayer feature has been generally received favorably, with IGN commenting that "adventuring is always better with friends". Jaz McDougall of PC Gamer said Minecraft is "intuitively interesting and contagiously fun, with an unparalleled scope for creativity and memorable experiences". It has been regarded as having introduced millions of children to the digital world, insofar as its basic game mechanics are logically analogous to computer commands. IGN was disappointed about the troublesome steps needed to set up multiplayer servers, calling it a "hassle". Critics also said that visual glitches occur periodically. Despite its release out of beta in 2011, GameSpot said the game had an "unfinished feel", adding that some game elements seem "incomplete or thrown together in haste". A review of the alpha version, by Scott Munro of the Daily Record, called it "already something special" and urged readers to buy it. Jim Rossignol of Rock Paper Shotgun also recommended the alpha of the game, calling it "a kind of generative 8-bit Lego Stalker". On 17 September 2010, gaming webcomic Penny Arcade began a series of comics and news posts about the addictiveness of the game. The Xbox 360 version was generally received positively by critics, but did not receive as much praise as the PC version. Although reviewers were disappointed by the lack of features such as mod support and content from the PC version, they acclaimed the port's addition of a tutorial and in-game tips and crafting recipes, saying that they make the game more user-friendly. The Xbox One Edition was one of the best received ports, being praised for its relatively large worlds. The PlayStation 3 Edition also received generally favorable reviews, being compared to the Xbox 360 Edition and praised for its well-adapted controls. The PlayStation 4 edition was the best received port to date, being praised for having 36 times larger worlds than the PlayStation 3 edition and described as nearly identical to the Xbox One edition. The PlayStation Vita Edition received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for its technical limitations. The Wii U version received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for a lack of GamePad integration. The 3DS version received mixed reviews, being criticized for its high price, technical issues, and lack of cross-platform play. The Nintendo Switch Edition received fairly positive reviews from critics, being praised, like other modern ports, for its relatively larger worlds. Minecraft: Pocket Edition initially received mixed reviews from critics. Although reviewers appreciated the game's intuitive controls, they were disappointed by the lack of content. The inability to collect resources and craft items, as well as the limited types of blocks and lack of hostile mobs, were especially criticized. After updates added more content, Pocket Edition started receiving more positive reviews. Reviewers complimented the controls and the graphics, but still noted a lack of content. Minecraft surpassed over a million purchases less than a month after entering its beta phase in early 2011. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth, and various unpaid references in popular media such as the Penny Arcade webcomic. By April 2011, Persson estimated that Minecraft had made €23 million (US$33 million) in revenue, with 800,000 sales of the alpha version of the game, and over 1 million sales of the beta version. In November 2011, prior to the game's full release, Minecraft beta surpassed 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. By March 2012, Minecraft had become the 6th best-selling PC game of all time. As of 10 October 2014[update], the game had sold 17 million copies on PC, becoming the best-selling PC game of all time. On 25 February 2014, the game reached 100 million registered users. By May 2019, 180 million copies had been sold across all platforms, making it the single best-selling video game of all time. The free-to-play Minecraft China version had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. By 2023, the game had sold over 300 million copies. As of April 2025, Minecraft has sold over 350 million copies. The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft became profitable within the first day of the game's release in 2012, when the game broke the Xbox Live sales records with 400,000 players online. Within a week of being on the Xbox Live Marketplace, Minecraft sold a million copies. GameSpot announced in December 2012 that Minecraft sold over 4.48 million copies since the game debuted on Xbox Live Arcade in May 2012. In 2012, Minecraft was the most purchased title on Xbox Live Arcade; it was also the fourth most played title on Xbox Live based on average unique users per day. As of 4 April 2014[update], the Xbox 360 version has sold 12 million copies. In addition, Minecraft: Pocket Edition has reached a figure of 21 million in sales. The PlayStation 3 Edition sold one million copies in five weeks. The release of the game's PlayStation Vita version boosted Minecraft sales by 79%, outselling both PS3 and PS4 debut releases and becoming the largest Minecraft launch on a PlayStation console. The PS Vita version sold 100,000 digital copies in Japan within the first two months of release, according to an announcement by SCE Japan Asia. By January 2015, 500,000 digital copies of Minecraft were sold in Japan across all PlayStation platforms, with a surge in primary school children purchasing the PS Vita version. As of 2022, the Vita version has sold over 1.65 million physical copies in Japan, making it the best-selling Vita game in the country. Minecraft helped improve Microsoft's total first-party revenue by $63 million for the 2015 second quarter. The game, including all of its versions, had over 112 million monthly active players by September 2019. On its 11th anniversary in May 2020, the company announced that Minecraft had reached over 200 million copies sold across platforms with over 126 million monthly active players. By April 2021, the number of active monthly users had climbed to 140 million. In July 2010, PC Gamer listed Minecraft as the fourth-best game to play at work. In December of that year, Good Game selected Minecraft as their choice for Best Downloadable Game of 2010, Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it the "game of the year". Indie DB awarded the game the 2010 Indie of the Year award as chosen by voters, in addition to two out of five Editor's Choice awards for Most Innovative and Best Singleplayer Indie. It was also awarded Game of the Year by PC Gamer UK. The game was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Technical Excellence, and Excellence in Design awards at the March 2011 Independent Games Festival and won the Grand Prize and the community-voted Audience Award. At Game Developers Choice Awards 2011, Minecraft won awards in the categories for Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game and Innovation Award, winning every award for which it was nominated. It also won GameCity's video game arts award. On 5 May 2011, Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that would be displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of The Art of Video Games exhibit that opened on 16 March 2012. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Minecraft won the award for Best Independent Game and was nominated in the Best PC Game category. In 2012, at the British Academy Video Games Awards, Minecraft was nominated in the GAME Award of 2011 category and Persson received The Special Award. In 2012, Minecraft XBLA was awarded a Golden Joystick Award in the Best Downloadable Game category, and a TIGA Games Industry Award in the Best Arcade Game category. In 2013, it was nominated as the family game of the year at the British Academy Video Games Awards. During the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft for "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year". Minecraft Console Edition won the award for TIGA Game Of The Year in 2014. In 2015, the game placed 6th on USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list. In 2016, Minecraft placed 6th on Time's The 50 Best Video Games of All Time list. Minecraft was nominated for the 2013 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite App, but lost to Temple Run. It was nominated for the 2014 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Video Game, but lost to Just Dance 2014. The game later won the award for the Most Addicting Game at the 2015 Kids' Choice Awards. In addition, the Java Edition was nominated for "Favorite Video Game" at the 2018 Kids' Choice Awards, while the game itself won the "Still Playing" award at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards, as well as the "Favorite Video Game" award at the 2020 Kids' Choice Awards. Minecraft also won "Stream Game of the Year" at inaugural Streamer Awards in 2021. The game later garnered a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award nomination for Favorite Video Game in 2021, and won the same category in 2022 and 2023. At the Golden Joystick Awards 2025, it won the Still Playing Award - PC and Console. Minecraft has been subject to several notable controversies. In June 2014, Mojang announced that it would begin enforcing the portion of Minecraft's end-user license agreement (EULA) which prohibits servers from giving in-game advantages to players in exchange for donations or payments. Spokesperson Owen Hill stated that servers could still require players to pay a fee to access the server and could sell in-game cosmetic items. The change was supported by Persson, citing emails he received from parents of children who had spent hundreds of dollars on servers. The Minecraft community and server owners protested, arguing that the EULA's terms were more broad than Mojang was claiming, that the crackdown would force smaller servers to shut down for financial reasons, and that Mojang was suppressing competition for its own Minecraft Realms subscription service. The controversy contributed to Notch's decision to sell Mojang. In 2020, Mojang announced an eventual change to the Java Edition to require a login from a Microsoft account rather than a Mojang account, the latter of which would be sunsetted. This also required Java Edition players to create Xbox network Gamertags. Mojang defended the move to Microsoft accounts by saying that improved security could be offered, including two-factor authentication, blocking cyberbullies in chat, and improved parental controls. The community responded with intense backlash, citing various technical difficulties encountered in the process and how account migration would be mandatory, even for those who do not play on servers. As of 10 March 2022, Microsoft required that all players migrate in order to maintain access the Java Edition of Minecraft. Mojang announced a deadline of 19 September 2023 for account migration, after which all legacy Mojang accounts became inaccessible and unable to be migrated. In June 2022, Mojang added a player-reporting feature in Java Edition. Players could report other players on multiplayer servers for sending messages prohibited by the Xbox Live Code of Conduct; report categories included profane language,[l] substance abuse, hate speech, threats of violence, and nudity. If a player was found to be in violation of Xbox Community Standards, they would be banned from all servers for a specific period of time or permanently. The update containing the report feature (1.19.1) was released on 27 July 2022. Mojang received substantial backlash and protest from community members, one of the most common complaints being that banned players would be forbidden from joining any server, even private ones. Others took issue to what they saw as Microsoft increasing control over its player base and exercising censorship, leading some to start a hashtag #saveminecraft and dub the version "1.19.84", a reference to the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The "Mob Vote" was an online event organized by Mojang in which the Minecraft community voted between three original mob concepts; initially, the winning mob was to be implemented in a future update, while the losing mobs were scrapped, though after the first mob vote this was changed, and losing mobs would now have a chance to come to the game in the future. The first Mob Vote was held during Minecon Earth 2017 and became an annual event starting with Minecraft Live 2020. The Mob Vote was often criticized for forcing players to choose one mob instead of implementing all three, causing divisions and flaming within the community, and potentially allowing internet bots and Minecraft content creators with large fanbases to conduct vote brigading. The Mob Vote was also blamed for a perceived lack of new content added to Minecraft since Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang in 2014. The 2023 Mob Vote featured three passive mobs—the crab, the penguin, and the armadillo—with voting scheduled to start on 13 October. In response, a Change.org petition was created on 6 October, demanding that Mojang eliminate the Mob Vote and instead implement all three mobs going forward. The petition received approximately 445,000 signatures by 13 October and was joined by calls to boycott the Mob Vote, as well as a partially tongue-in-cheek "revolutionary" propaganda campaign in which sympathizers created anti-Mojang and pro-boycott posters in the vein of real 20th century propaganda posters. Mojang did not release an official response to the boycott, and the Mob Vote otherwise proceeded normally, with the armadillo winning the vote. In September 2024, as part of a blog post detailing their future plans for Minecraft's development, Mojang announced the Mob Vote would be retired. Cultural impact In September 2019, The Guardian classified Minecraft as the best video game of the 21st century to date, and in November 2019, Polygon called it the "most important game of the decade" in its 2010s "decade in review". In June 2020, Minecraft was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Minecraft is recognized as one of the first successful games to use an early access model to draw in sales prior to its full release version to help fund development. As Minecraft helped to bolster indie game development in the early 2010s, it also helped to popularize the use of the early access model in indie game development. Social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit have played a significant role in popularizing Minecraft. Research conducted by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania showed that one-third of Minecraft players learned about the game via Internet videos. In 2010, Minecraft-related videos began to gain influence on YouTube, often made by commentators. The videos usually contain screen-capture footage of the game and voice-overs. Common coverage in the videos includes creations made by players, walkthroughs of various tasks, and parodies of works in popular culture. By May 2012, over four million Minecraft-related YouTube videos had been uploaded. The game would go on to be a prominent fixture within YouTube's gaming scene during the entire 2010s; in 2014, it was the second-most searched term on the entire platform. By 2018, it was still YouTube's biggest game globally. Some popular commentators have received employment at Machinima, a now-defunct gaming video company that owned a highly watched entertainment channel on YouTube. The Yogscast is a British company that regularly produces Minecraft videos; their YouTube channel has attained billions of views, and their panel at Minecon 2011 had the highest attendance. Another well-known YouTube personality is Jordan Maron, known online as CaptainSparklez, who has also created many Minecraft music parodies, including "Revenge", a parody of Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love". Minecraft's popularity on YouTube was described by Polygon as quietly dominant, although in 2019, thanks in part to PewDiePie's playthroughs of the game, Minecraft experienced a visible uptick in popularity on the platform. Longer-running series include Far Lands or Bust, dedicated to reaching the obsolete "Far Lands" glitch by foot on an older version of the game. YouTube announced that on 14 December 2021 that the total amount of Minecraft-related views on the website had exceeded one trillion. Minecraft has been referenced by other video games, such as Torchlight II, Team Fortress 2, Borderlands 2, Choplifter HD, Super Meat Boy, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Binding of Isaac, The Stanley Parable, and FTL: Faster Than Light. Minecraft is officially represented in downloadable content for the crossover fighter Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with Steve as a playable character with a moveset including references to building, crafting, and redstone, alongside an Overworld-themed stage. It was also referenced by electronic music artist Deadmau5 in his performances. The game is also referenced heavily in "Informative Murder Porn", the second episode of the seventeenth season of the animated television series South Park. In 2025, A Minecraft Movie was released. It made $313 million in the box office in the first week, a record-breaking opening for a video game adaptation. Minecraft has been noted as a cultural touchstone for Generation Z, as many of the generation's members played the game at a young age. The possible applications of Minecraft have been discussed extensively, especially in the fields of computer-aided design (CAD) and education. In a panel at Minecon 2011, a Swedish developer discussed the possibility of using the game to redesign public buildings and parks, stating that rendering using Minecraft was much more user-friendly for the community, making it easier to envision the functionality of new buildings and parks. In 2012, a member of the Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab, Cody Sumter, said: "Notch hasn't just built a game. He's tricked 40 million people into learning to use a CAD program." Various software has been developed to allow virtual designs to be printed using professional 3D printers or personal printers such as MakerBot and RepRap. In September 2012, Mojang began the Block by Block project in cooperation with UN Habitat to create real-world environments in Minecraft. The project allows young people who live in those environments to participate in designing the changes they would like to see. Using Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the Minecraft servers and modify their own neighborhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's managing director, called the game "the perfect tool to facilitate this process", adding "The three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat's Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016." Mojang signed Minecraft building community, FyreUK, to help render the environments into Minecraft. The first pilot project began in Kibera, one of Nairobi's informal settlements and is in the planning phase. The Block by Block project is based on an earlier initiative started in October 2011, Mina Kvarter (My Block), which gave young people in Swedish communities a tool to visualize how they wanted to change their part of town. According to Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualize urban planning ideas without necessarily having a training in architecture. The ideas presented by the citizens were a template for political decisions. In April 2014, the Danish Geodata Agency generated all of Denmark in fullscale in Minecraft based on their own geodata. This is possible because Denmark is one of the flattest countries with the highest point at 171 meters (ranking as the country with the 30th smallest elevation span), where the limit in default Minecraft was around 192 meters above in-game sea level when the project was completed. Taking advantage of the game's accessibility where other websites are censored, the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders has used an open Minecraft server to create the Uncensored Library, a repository within the game of journalism by authors from countries (including Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam) who have been censored and arrested, such as Jamal Khashoggi. The neoclassical virtual building was created over about 250 hours by an international team of 24 people. Despite its unpredictable nature, Minecraft speedrunning, where players time themselves from spawning into a new world to reaching The End and defeating the Ender Dragon boss, is popular. Some speedrunners use a combination of mods, external programs, and debug menus, while other runners play the game in a more vanilla or more consistency-oriented way. Minecraft has been used in educational settings through initiatives such as MinecraftEdu, founded in 2011 to make the game affordable and accessible for schools in collaboration with Mojang. MinecraftEdu provided features allowing teachers to monitor student progress, including screenshot submissions as evidence of lesson completion, and by 2012 reported that approximately 250,000 students worldwide had access to the platform. Mojang also developed Minecraft: Education Edition with pre-built lesson plans for up to 30 students in a closed environment. Educators have used Minecraft to teach subjects such as history, language arts, and science through custom-built environments, including reconstructions of historical landmarks and large-scale models of biological structures such as animal cells. The introduction of redstone blocks enabled the construction of functional virtual machines such as a hard drive and an 8-bit computer. Mods have been created to use these mechanics for teaching programming. In 2014, the British Museum announced a project to reproduce its building and exhibits in Minecraft in collaboration with the public. Microsoft and Code.org have offered Minecraft-based tutorials and activities designed to teach programming, reporting by 2018 that more than 85 million children had used their resources. In 2025, the Musée de Minéralogie in Paris held a temporary exhibition titled "Minerals in Minecraft." Following the initial surge in popularity of Minecraft in 2010, other video games were criticised for having various similarities to Minecraft, and some were described as being "clones", often due to a direct inspiration from Minecraft, or a superficial similarity. Examples include Ace of Spades, CastleMiner, CraftWorld, FortressCraft, Terraria, BlockWorld 3D, Total Miner, and Luanti (formerly Minetest). David Frampton, designer of The Blockheads, reported that one failure of his 2D game was the "low resolution pixel art" that too closely resembled the art in Minecraft, which resulted in "some resistance" from fans. A homebrew adaptation of the alpha version of Minecraft for the Nintendo DS, titled DScraft, has been released; it has been noted for its similarity to the original game considering the technical limitations of the system. In response to Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang and their Minecraft IP, various developers announced further clone titles developed specifically for Nintendo's consoles, as they were the only major platforms not to officially receive Minecraft at the time. These clone titles include UCraft (Nexis Games), Cube Life: Island Survival (Cypronia), Discovery (Noowanda), Battleminer (Wobbly Tooth Games), Cube Creator 3D (Big John Games), and Stone Shire (Finger Gun Games). Despite this, the fears of fans were unfounded, with official Minecraft releases on Nintendo consoles eventually resuming. Markus Persson made another similar game, Minicraft, for a Ludum Dare competition in 2011. In 2025, Persson announced through a poll on his X account that he was considering developing a spiritual successor to Minecraft. He later clarified that he was "100% serious", and that he had "basically announced Minecraft 2". Within days, however, Persson cancelled the plans after speaking to his team. In November 2024, artificial intelligence companies Decart and Etched released Oasis, an artificially generated version of Minecraft, as a proof of concept. Every in-game element is completely AI-generated in real time and the model does not store world data, leading to "hallucinations" such as items and blocks appearing that were not there before. In January 2026, indie game developer Unomelon announced that their voxel sandbox game Allumeria would be playable in Steam Next Fest that year. On 10 February, Mojang issued a DMCA takedown of Allumeria on Steam through Valve, alleging the game was infringing on Minecraft's copyright. Some reports suggested that the takedown may have used an automatic AI copyright claiming service. The DMCA was later withdrawn. Minecon was an annual official fan convention dedicated to Minecraft. The first full Minecon was held in November 2011 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The event included the official launch of Minecraft; keynote speeches, including one by Persson; building and costume contests; Minecraft-themed breakout classes; exhibits by leading gaming and Minecraft-related companies; commemorative merchandise; and autograph and picture times with Mojang employees and well-known contributors from the Minecraft community. In 2016, Minecon was held in-person for the last time, with the following years featuring annual "Minecon Earth" livestreams on minecraft.net and YouTube instead. These livestreams, later rebranded to "Minecraft Live", included the mob/biome votes, and announcements of new game updates. In 2025, "Minecraft Live" became a biannual event as part of Minecraft's changing update schedule.[citation needed] Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Joystick_Award] | [TOKENS: 1012] |
Contents Golden Joystick Awards The Golden Joystick Awards, also known as the People's Gaming Awards, is a video game award ceremony; it awards the best video games of the year. Although originally solely voted for by the British public, it is now a global event that is voted for online by millions of fans worldwide via GamesRadar+. Launched in 1983, the Golden Joystick Awards is the longest-running and one of the biggest public-voted video game award shows. The awards were initially focused on computer games, but were extended to include console games. The ceremony is not directly related to the golden joystick prize given away to successful contestants on GamesMaster, a British television show, but both properties belong to Future plc. Winners Awards were presented by DJ Dave Lee Travis at a ceremony in London's Berkeley Square. Awards were presented by Jools Holland, at a ceremony in London. Awards were presented by Jools Holland, at a ceremony on a Thames Riverboat. The ceremony took place at Cadogan Hall. Awards were presented by Chris Tarrant. The ceremony took place at Kensington Roof Gardens. The ceremony took place at Kensington Roof Gardens, 11 April 1990. The ceremony took place at Kensington Roof Gardens, 4 April 1991. The ceremony took place at Hyde Park Hotel, London, on 7 April 1992. The ceremony took place at Kensington, London, in May 1993. The ceremony took place in London, on 16 May 1994. The ceremony took place at Café de Paris, in November 1997. The 2002 ceremony took place at the Dorchester Hotel on 25 October 2002 and was hosted by Jonathan Ross. The 2003 ceremony took place at the Park Lane Hilton on 28 November 2003 and was hosted by Phill Jupitus. The 2004 ceremony took place at the Park Lane Hilton on 5 November 2004 and was hosted by Matt Lucas. The 2005 ceremony took place at the Park Lane Hilton on 4 November 2005 and was hosted by Jimmy Carr. The 2006 ceremony took place at the Park Lane Hilton on 27 October 2006 and was hosted by Emma Griffiths. The 2007 ceremony took place at the Park Lane Hilton on 26 October 2007 and was hosted by David Mitchell. The 2008 ceremony took place at the Park Lane Hilton on 31 October 2008 and was hosted by Frankie Boyle. The 2009 ceremony took place at the Park Lane Hilton on 30 October 2009 and was hosted by Sean Lock. The 2010 ceremony took place at the Bridge Park Plaza on 29 October 2010 and was hosted by Rich Hall. The 2011 ceremony took place at the Bridge Park Plaza on 21 October 2011 and was hosted by Seann Walsh. The 2012 ceremony took place at the Bridge Park Plaza on 26 October 2012 and was hosted by Ed Byrne. The 2013 ceremony took place at the indigO2 on 25 October 2013 and was hosted by Ed Byrne. The 2014 ceremony took place at the indigO2 on 24 October 2014 and was hosted by Ed Byrne. The 2015 ceremony took place at the indigO2 on 30 October 2015 and was hosted by Danny Wallace. The 2016 ceremony took place at the indigO2 on 18 November 2016 and was hosted by James Veitch. The 2017 ceremony took place at Bloomsbury Big Top on 17 November 2017 and was hosted by Danny Wallace. The 2018 ceremony took place at Bloomsbury Big Top on 16 November 2018, and was hosted by Danny Wallace. The 2019 ceremony took place at Bloomsbury Big Top on 16 November 2019. The 2020 ceremony took place digitally on 24 November 2020 and was hosted by Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham. The 2021 ceremony took place on 23 November 2021 and was hosted by Nolan North and Emily Rose. The Golden Joystick Awards celebrated 50 Years Of Games by asking the public to vote for the Ultimate Game Of All Time, which was won by the 2011 game Dark Souls. The PC also received the Best Gaming Hardware of All Time Award, which was accepted by Valve president Gabe Newell.[citation needed] The 2022 ceremony took place on 22 November 2022. The 2023 ceremony took place at the Royal Lancaster Hotel on 10 November 2023, and was hosted by Troy Baker. The 2024 ceremony took place at the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms on 21 November 2024, and was hosted by Ben Starr. The 2025 ceremony took place at the 8 Northumberland Avenue on 20 November 2025, and was hosted by Maggie Robertson. References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalonia] | [TOKENS: 1667] |
Contents Avalonia Avalonia was a microcontinent in the Paleozoic era. Crustal fragments of this former microcontinent are terranes in parts of the eastern coast of North America: Atlantic Canada, and parts of the East Coast of the United States. In addition, terranes derived from Avalonia also make up portions of Northwestern Europe, being found in England, Wales and parts of Ireland. Avalonia developed as a volcanic arc on the northern margin of Gondwana. It eventually rifted off, becoming a drifting microcontinent. The Rheic Ocean formed behind it, and the Iapetus Ocean shrank in front. It collided with the continents Baltica, then Laurentia. The Armorican Terrane assemblage collided with the merged Baltica/Avalonia during the formation of Pangea. When Pangea broke up, Avalonia's remains were divided by the rift which became the Atlantic Ocean. Avalonia is named for the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland. When the term "Avalon" was first coined by Canadian geologist Harold Williams in 1964, he included only Precambrian rocks in eastern Newfoundland. More than a decade later he extended the term to include all exotic rocks from Newfoundland down to Rhode Island. Since the introduction of the term terrane in the 1980s, Avalonia has been referred to as "platform", "composite terrane", "superterrane", "East" and "West Avalonia", and "Avalon sensu lato". "Avalonia" can thus refer exclusively to rocks in Newfoundland (Avalonia sensu stricto), an assembly of terranes, or a single tectonic unit. Extent Avalonia is the largest of the peri-Gondwanan terranes, a series of continental blocks that more or less simultaneously broke off the northern margin of Gondwana and therefore share an early Paleozoic marine fauna. They migrated northward. Eventually Western Avalonia was accreted to Laurentia (the proto North American tectonic plate) in the Acadian orogeny and Eastern Avalonia was accreted to Baltica (the proto European plate) in the Caledonian orogeny. In North America Western Avalonia stretches from New England to Atlantic Canada. In Canada, it comprises the Avalon Peninsula of southeast Newfoundland, southern New Brunswick, part of Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. In the United States, it consists of northern coastal Maine, all of Rhode Island, and other sections of coastal New England. The accretion of East Avalonia to Baltica substantially increased the size of this plate by adding an area which includes most of Poland (only the NE corner of this area was part of Baltica) northern Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, a strip of northern France, England, Wales and the eastern and southeastern parts of Ireland. Scotland and the northern and western parts of Ireland were part of Laurentia. The British and Irish Isles as we know them now were formed during the Acadian phase of the Caledonian orogeny when the parts which belonged to Laurentia and those which belonged to Avalonia were amalgamated. The North American terranes of Ganderia and Carolinia are sometimes grouped with Avalonia as "Greater Avalonia" because they migrated across the Iapetus Ocean together . Sometimes the Meguma terrane in Nova Scotia is also included. Other Peri-Gondwanan terranes include Carolina in the Appalachians and the deep bedrock of Florida in North America, Oaxaquia and Yucatán in Mexico, and the Chortis Block of Honduras and Guatemala. Part of the British-Belgian section formed an island in the Carboniferous, affecting the disposition of coalfields; this is known by names such as the 'London-Brabant Island'. Its bulk had an effect on the geological structure between the Ardennes and the English Midlands by influencing the subsequent crustal folding resulting from the Variscan collision. Development The basement of Avalonia is poorly known, but, based on isotopic analyses, proto-Avalonia most likely evolved together with Carolina about 800 Ma from volcanic arcs far offshore from the supercontinent Rodinia, most likely outboard continental terranes of more obvious West African affinities, such as Cadomia and Iberia. About 650 Ma the Avalonian belt collided with Gondwana. Avalonia originally developed along the shores of Rodinia together with island arcs now found in the Arabian-Nubian Shield (900–700 Ma) and Tocantins in central Brazil (950–900 Ma) and the basement of Avalonia is most likely of the same age. During the Precambrian-Cambrian transition, Avalonia was located in a cool-water environment and even underwent a glaciation. The Moroccan Anti-Atlas range in West Gondwana was, in contrast, characterised by evaporites, evidence of desiccation, and had thrombolites. Avalonia and Gondwana must therefore have been located far from each other during this period. The two did, however, share a geological history from later in the early Cambrian until the mid-Ordovician. Post-orogenic tectonic dynamics during the Cadomian orogeny along the northern margin of Gondwana caused the opening of the Rheic Ocean and the rifting and northward migration of Avalonia in front of it in the Late Cambrian-Early Ordovician. This migration also involved the consumption of the Tornquist Ocean to the north of Avalonia which had opened between Baltica and Gondwana when the former had rifted from the latter and migrated northward earlier. This independent movement of Avalonia started from a latitude of about 60° South. In the Late Ordovician the Tornquist Ocean was closed by the collision of Eastern Avalonia with Baltica at 30°S, causing the accretion of the former to the latter during the Caledonian orogeny. In Avalonia, folding, faulting, and volcanism followed – as evidenced in the Welsh Borderland and the Taconic deformation in Laurentia – some or all of which are related to the collision. Plinian eruptions resulted from the subduction beneath Avalonia and produced thick layers of K-bentonite in southwestern Baltica, while the Millbrig eruptions occurred in Laurentia. This Late Ordovician magmatism peaked between 457 and 449 Ma. In the late Silurian- Early Devonian, there was the Acadian orogeny in which Western Avalonia collided with and was accreted to the eastern coast of Laurentia.[citation needed] In the British Isles this orogenic event is regarded as the last phase of the Caledonian orogeny. It involved a soft collision and the amalgamation of the parts of these isles that belonged to Laurentia with those that belonged to Avalonia (see above) to form the British Isles as we know them now. In the Late Devonian-Carboniferous, another group of peri-Gondwanan terranes, the Armorican Terrane Assemblage drifted from the African part of Gondwana while the latter was converging with Laurussia. These terranes were accreted to Baltica/Avalonia, adding the Iberian Peninsula and lands that now are in southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland and France to Europe. This was during the Variscan orogeny which created the European Varicides and was part of the process of amalgamation of Laurussia and Gondwana, which formed Pangaea. This was happening at around the Equator with Avalonia near its centre but partially flooded by shallow sea. The rifting and opening of the Atlantic Ocean broke up Pangaea. When this rifting propagated to the North Atlantic in the Cretaceous, Laurentia and Eurasia were separated and drifted away from each other. As a result parts of Avalonia are now on both sides of this ocean. See also References External links Africa Antarctica Asia Australia Europe North America South America Afro-Eurasia Americas Eurasia Oceania |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft#cite_note-bafta-331] | [TOKENS: 12858] |
Contents Minecraft Minecraft is a sandbox game developed and published by Mojang Studios. Following its initial public alpha release in 2009, it was formally released in 2011 for personal computers. The game has since been ported to numerous platforms, including mobile devices and various video game consoles. In Minecraft, players explore a procedurally generated world with virtually infinite terrain made up of voxels (cubes). They can discover and extract raw materials, craft tools and items, build structures, fight hostile mobs, and cooperate with or compete against other players in multiplayer. The game's large community offers a wide variety of user-generated content, such as modifications, servers, player skins, texture packs, and custom maps, which add new game mechanics and possibilities. Originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java programming language, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten was handed control over the game's development following its full release. In 2014, Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion; Xbox Game Studios hold the publishing rights for the Bedrock Edition, the unified cross-platform version which evolved from the Pocket Edition codebase[i] and replaced the legacy console versions. Bedrock is updated concurrently with Mojang's original Java Edition, although with numerous, generally small, differences. Minecraft is the best-selling video game in history with over 350 million copies sold. It has received critical acclaim, winning several awards and being cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. Social media, parodies, adaptations, merchandise, and the annual Minecon conventions have played prominent roles in popularizing it. The wider Minecraft franchise includes several spin-off games, such as Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft Dungeons, and Minecraft Legends. A film adaptation, titled A Minecraft Movie, was released in 2025 and became the second highest-grossing video game film of all time. Gameplay Minecraft is a 3D sandbox video game that has no required goals to accomplish, giving players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. The game features an optional achievement system. Gameplay is in the first-person perspective by default, but players have the option of third-person perspectives. The game world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes, referred to as blocks—representing various materials, such as dirt, stone, ores, tree trunks, water, and lava. The core gameplay revolves around picking up and placing these objects. These blocks are arranged in a voxel grid, while players can move freely around the world. Players can break, or mine, blocks and then place them elsewhere, enabling them to build things. Very few blocks are affected by gravity, instead maintaining their voxel position in the air. Players can also craft a wide variety of items, such as armor, which mitigates damage from attacks; weapons (such as swords or bows and arrows), which allow monsters and animals to be killed more easily; and tools (such as pickaxes or shovels), which break certain types of blocks more quickly. Some items have multiple tiers depending on the material used to craft them, with higher-tier items being more effective and durable. They may also freely craft helpful blocks—such as furnaces which can cook food and smelt ores, and torches that produce light—or exchange items with villagers (NPC) through trading emeralds for different goods and vice versa. The game has an inventory system, allowing players to carry a limited number of items. The in-game time system follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting for 20 real-time minutes. The game also contains a material called redstone, which can be used to make primitive mechanical devices, electrical circuits, and logic gates, allowing for the construction of many complex systems. New players are given a randomly selected default character skin out of nine possibilities, including Steve or Alex, but are able to create and upload their own skins. Players encounter various mobs (short for mobile entities) including animals, villagers, and hostile creatures. Passive mobs, such as cows, pigs, and chickens, spawn during the daytime and can be hunted for food and crafting materials, while hostile mobs—including large spiders, witches, skeletons, and zombies—spawn during nighttime or in dark places such as caves. Some hostile mobs, such as zombies and skeletons, burn under the sun if they have no headgear and are not standing in water. Other creatures unique to Minecraft include the creeper (an exploding creature that sneaks up on the player) and the enderman (a creature with the ability to teleport as well as pick up and place blocks). There are also variants of mobs that spawn in different conditions; for example, zombies have husk and drowned variants that spawn in deserts and oceans, respectively. The Minecraft environment is procedurally generated as players explore it using a map seed that is randomly chosen at the time of world creation (or manually specified by the player). Divided into biomes representing different environments with unique resources and structures, worlds are designed to be effectively infinite in traditional gameplay, though technical limits on the player have existed throughout development, both intentionally and not. Implementation of horizontally infinite generation initially resulted in a glitch termed the "Far Lands" at over 12 million blocks away from the world center, where terrain generated as wall-like, fissured patterns. The Far Lands and associated glitches were considered the effective edge of the world until they were resolved, with the current horizontal limit instead being a special impassable barrier called the world border, located 30 million blocks away. Vertical space is comparatively limited, with an unbreakable bedrock layer at the bottom and a building limit several hundred blocks into the sky. Minecraft features three independent dimensions accessible through portals and providing alternate game environments. The Overworld is the starting dimension and represents the real world, with a terrestrial surface setting including plains, mountains, forests, oceans, caves, and small sources of lava. The Nether is a hell-like underworld dimension accessed via an obsidian portal and composed mainly of lava. Mobs that populate the Nether include shrieking, fireball-shooting ghasts, alongside anthropomorphic pigs called piglins and their zombified counterparts. Piglins in particular have a bartering system, where players can give them gold ingots and receive items in return. Structures known as Nether Fortresses generate in the Nether, containing mobs such as wither skeletons and blazes, which can drop blaze rods needed to access the End dimension. The player can also choose to build an optional boss mob known as the Wither, using skulls obtained from wither skeletons and soul sand. The End can be reached through an end portal, consisting of twelve end portal frames. End portals are found in underground structures in the Overworld known as strongholds. To find strongholds, players must craft eyes of ender using an ender pearl and blaze powder. Eyes of ender can then be thrown, traveling in the direction of the stronghold. Once the player reaches the stronghold, they can place eyes of ender into each portal frame to activate the end portal. The dimension consists of islands floating in a dark, bottomless void. A boss enemy called the Ender Dragon guards the largest, central island. Killing the dragon opens access to an exit portal, which, when entered, cues the game's ending credits and the End Poem, a roughly 1,500-word work written by Irish novelist Julian Gough, which takes about nine minutes to scroll past, is the game's only narrative text, and the only text of significant length directed at the player.: 10–12 At the conclusion of the credits, the player is teleported back to their respawn point and may continue the game indefinitely. In Survival mode, players have to gather natural resources such as wood and stone found in the environment in order to craft certain blocks and items. Depending on the difficulty, monsters spawn in darker areas outside a certain radius of the character, requiring players to build a shelter in order to survive at night. The mode also has a health bar which is depleted by attacks from mobs, falls, drowning, falling into lava, suffocation, starvation, and other events. Players also have a hunger bar, which must be periodically refilled by eating food in-game unless the player is playing on peaceful difficulty. If the hunger bar is empty, the player starves. Health replenishes when players have a full hunger bar or continuously on peaceful. Upon losing all health, players die. The items in the players' inventories are dropped unless the game is reconfigured not to do so. Players then re-spawn at their spawn point, which by default is where players first spawn in the game and can be changed by sleeping in a bed or using a respawn anchor. Dropped items can be recovered if players can reach them before they despawn after 5 minutes. Players may acquire experience points (commonly referred to as "xp" or "exp") by killing mobs and other players, mining, smelting ores, animal breeding, and cooking food. Experience can then be spent on enchanting tools, armor and weapons. Enchanted items are generally more powerful, last longer, or have other special effects. The game features two more game modes based on Survival, known as Hardcore mode and Adventure mode. Hardcore mode plays identically to Survival mode, but with the game's difficulty setting locked to "Hard" and with permadeath, forcing them to delete the world or explore it as a spectator after dying. Adventure mode was added to the game in a post-launch update, and prevents the player from directly modifying the game's world. It was designed primarily for use in custom maps, allowing map designers to let players experience it as intended. In Creative mode, players have access to an infinite number of all resources and items in the game through the inventory menu and can place or mine them instantly. Players can toggle the ability to fly freely around the game world at will, and their characters usually do not take any damage nor are affected by hunger. The game mode helps players focus on building and creating projects of any size without disturbance. Multiplayer in Minecraft enables multiple players to interact and communicate with each other on a single world. It is available through direct game-to-game multiplayer, local area network (LAN) play, local split screen (console-only), and servers (player-hosted and business-hosted). Players can run their own server by making a realm, using a host provider, hosting one themselves or connect directly to another player's game via Xbox Live, PlayStation Network or Nintendo Switch Online. Single-player worlds have LAN support, allowing players to join a world on locally interconnected computers without a server setup. Minecraft multiplayer servers are guided by server operators, who have access to server commands such as setting the time of day and teleporting players. Operators can also set up restrictions concerning which usernames or IP addresses are allowed or disallowed to enter the server. Multiplayer servers have a wide range of activities, with some servers having their own unique rules and customs. The largest and most popular server is Hypixel, which has been visited by over 14 million unique players. Player versus player combat (PvP) can be enabled to allow fighting between players. In 2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service intended to enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and safely without having to set up their own. Unlike a standard server, only invited players can join Realms servers, and these servers do not use server addresses. Minecraft: Java Edition Realms server owners can invite up to twenty people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at a time. Minecraft Realms server owners can invite up to 3,000 people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at one time. The Minecraft: Java Edition Realms servers do not support user-made plugins, but players can play custom Minecraft maps. Minecraft Bedrock Realms servers support user-made add-ons, resource packs, behavior packs, and custom Minecraft maps. At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016, support for cross-platform play between Windows 10, iOS, and Android platforms was added through Realms starting in June 2016, with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch support to come later in 2017, and support for virtual reality devices. On 31 July 2017, Mojang released the beta version of the update allowing cross-platform play. Nintendo Switch support for Realms was released in July 2018. The modding community consists of fans, users and third-party programmers. Using a variety of application program interfaces that have arisen over time, they have produced a wide variety of downloadable content for Minecraft, such as modifications, texture packs and custom maps. Modifications of the Minecraft code, called mods, add a variety of gameplay changes, ranging from new blocks, items, and mobs to entire arrays of mechanisms. The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as mini-maps, waypoints, and durability counters, to ones that add to the game elements from other video games and media. While a variety of mod frameworks were independently developed by reverse engineering the code, Mojang has also enhanced vanilla Minecraft with official frameworks for modification, allowing the production of community-created resource packs, which alter certain game elements including textures and sounds. Players can also create their own "maps" (custom world save files) that often contain specific rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to play. Mojang added an adventure mode in August 2012 and "command blocks" in October 2012, which were created specially for custom maps in Java Edition. Data packs, introduced in version 1.13 of the Java Edition, allow further customization, including the ability to add new achievements, dimensions, functions, loot tables, predicates, recipes, structures, tags, and world generation. The Xbox 360 Edition supported downloadable content, which was available to purchase via the Xbox Games Store; these content packs usually contained additional character skins. It later received support for texture packs in its twelfth title update while introducing "mash-up packs", which combined texture packs with skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface. The first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the Xbox 360 Edition was released on 4 September 2013, and was themed after the Mass Effect franchise. Unlike Java Edition, however, the Xbox 360 Edition did not support player-made mods or custom maps. A cross-promotional resource pack based on the Super Mario franchise by Nintendo was released exclusively for the Wii U Edition worldwide on 17 May 2016, and later bundled free with the Nintendo Switch Edition at launch. Another based on Fallout was released on consoles that December, and for Windows and Mobile in April 2017. In April 2018, malware was discovered in several downloadable user-made Minecraft skins for use with the Java Edition of the game. Avast stated that nearly 50,000 accounts were infected, and when activated, the malware would attempt to reformat the user's hard drive. Mojang promptly patched the issue, and released a statement stating that "the code would not be run or read by the game itself", and would run only when the image containing the skin itself was opened. In June 2017, Mojang released the "1.1 Discovery Update" to the Pocket Edition of the game, which later became the Bedrock Edition. The update introduced the "Marketplace", a catalogue of purchasable user-generated content intended to give Minecraft creators "another way to make a living from the game". Various skins, maps, texture packs and add-ons from different creators can be bought with "Minecoins", a digital currency that is purchased with real money. Additionally, users can access specific content with a subscription service titled "Marketplace Pass". Alongside content from independent creators, the Marketplace also houses items published by Mojang and Microsoft themselves, as well as official collaborations between Minecraft and other intellectual properties. By 2022, the Marketplace had over 1.7 billion content downloads, generating over $500 million in revenue. Development Before creating Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson was a game developer at King, where he worked until March 2009. At King, he primarily developed browser games and learned several programming languages. During his free time, he prototyped his own games, often drawing inspiration from other titles, and was an active participant on the TIGSource forums for independent developers. One such project was "RubyDung", a base-building game inspired by Dwarf Fortress, but with an isometric, three-dimensional perspective similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon. Among the features in RubyDung that he explored was a first-person view similar to Dungeon Keeper, though he ultimately discarded this idea, feeling the graphics were too pixelated at the time. Around March 2009, Persson left King and joined jAlbum, while continuing to work on his prototypes. Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game first released in April 2009, inspired Persson's vision for RubyDung's future direction. Infiniminer heavily influenced the visual style of gameplay, including bringing back the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals. However, unlike Infiniminer, Persson wanted Minecraft to have RPG elements. The first public alpha build of Minecraft was released on 17 May 2009 on TIGSource. Over the years, Persson regularly released test builds that added new features, including tools, mobs, and entire new dimensions. In 2011, partly due to the game's rising popularity, Persson decided to release a full 1.0 version—a second part of the "Adventure Update"—on 18 November 2011. Shortly after, Persson stepped down from development, handing the project's lead to Jens "Jeb" Bergensten. On 15 September 2014, Microsoft, the developer behind the Microsoft Windows operating system and Xbox video game console, announced a $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang, which included the Minecraft intellectual property. Persson had suggested the deal on Twitter, asking a corporation to buy his stake in the game after receiving criticism for enforcing terms in the game's end-user license agreement (EULA), which had been in place for the past three years. According to Persson, Mojang CEO Carl Manneh received a call from a Microsoft executive shortly after the tweet, asking if Persson was serious about a deal. Mojang was also approached by other companies including Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts. The deal with Microsoft was arbitrated on 6 November 2014 and led to Persson becoming one of Forbes' "World's Billionaires". After 2014, Minecraft's primary versions received usually annual major updates—free to players who have purchased the game— each primarily centered around a specific theme. For instance, version 1.13, the Update Aquatic, focused on ocean-related features, while version 1.16, the Nether Update, introduced significant changes to the Nether dimension. However, in late 2024, Mojang announced a shift in their update strategy; rather than releasing large updates annually, they opted for a more frequent release schedule with smaller, incremental updates, stating, "We know that you want new Minecraft content more often." The Bedrock Edition has also received regular updates, now matching the themes of the Java Edition updates. Other versions of the game, such as various console editions and the Pocket Edition, were either merged into Bedrock or discontinued and have not received further updates. On 7 May 2019, coinciding with Minecraft's 10th anniversary, a JavaScript recreation of an old 2009 Java Edition build named Minecraft Classic was made available to play online for free. On 16 April 2020, a Bedrock Edition-exclusive beta version of Minecraft, called Minecraft RTX, was released by Nvidia. It introduced physically-based rendering, real-time path tracing, and DLSS for RTX-enabled GPUs. The public release was made available on 8 December 2020. Path tracing can only be enabled in supported worlds, which can be downloaded for free via the in-game Minecraft Marketplace, with a texture pack from Nvidia's website, or with compatible third-party texture packs. It cannot be enabled by default with any texture pack on any world. Initially, Minecraft RTX was affected by many bugs, display errors, and instability issues. On 22 March 2025, a new visual mode called Vibrant Visuals, an optional graphical overhaul similar to Minecraft RTX, was announced. It promises modern rendering features—such as dynamic shadows, screen space reflections, volumetric fog, and bloom—without the need of RTX-capable hardware. Vibrant Visuals was released as a part of the Chase the Skies update on 17 June 2025 for Bedrock Edition and is planned to release on Java Edition at a later date. Development began for the original edition of Minecraft—then known as Cave Game, and now known as the Java Edition—in May 2009,[k] and ended on 13 May, when Persson released a test video on YouTube of an early version of the game, dubbed the "Cave game tech test" or the "Cave game tech demo". The game was named Minecraft: Order of the Stone the next day, after a suggestion made by a player. "Order of the Stone" came from the webcomic The Order of the Stick, and "Minecraft" was chosen "because it's a good name". The title was later shortened to just Minecraft, omitting the subtitle. Persson completed the game's base programming over a weekend in May 2009, and private testing began on TigIRC on 16 May. The first public release followed on 17 May 2009 as a developmental version shared on the TIGSource forums. Based on feedback from forum users, Persson continued updating the game. This initial public build later became known as Classic. Further developmental phases—dubbed Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev—were released throughout 2009 and 2010. The first major update, known as Alpha, was released on 30 June 2010. At the time, Persson was still working a day job at jAlbum but later resigned to focus on Minecraft full-time as sales of the alpha version surged. Updates were distributed automatically, introducing new blocks, items, mobs, and changes to game mechanics such as water flow. With revenue generated from the game, Persson founded Mojang, a video game studio, alongside former colleagues Jakob Porser and Carl Manneh. On 11 December 2010, Persson announced that Minecraft would enter its beta phase on 20 December. He assured players that bug fixes and all pre-release updates would remain free. As development progressed, Mojang expanded, hiring additional employees to work on the project. The game officially exited beta and launched in full on 18 November 2011. On 1 December 2011, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took full creative control over Minecraft, replacing Persson as lead designer. On 28 February 2012, Mojang announced the hiring of the developers behind Bukkit, a popular developer API for Minecraft servers, to improve Minecraft's support of server modifications. This move included Mojang taking apparent ownership of the CraftBukkit server mod, though this apparent acquisition later became controversial, and its legitimacy was questioned due to CraftBukkit's open-source nature and licensing under the GNU General Public License and Lesser General Public License. In August 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released as an early alpha for the Xperia Play via the Android Market, later expanding to other Android devices on 8 October 2011. The iOS version followed on 17 November 2011. A port was made available for Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft acquired Mojang. Unlike Java Edition, Pocket Edition initially focused on Minecraft's creative building and basic survival elements but lacked many features of the PC version. Bergensten confirmed on Twitter that the Pocket Edition was written in C++ rather than Java, as iOS does not support Java. On 10 December 2014, a port of Pocket Edition was released for Windows Phone 8.1. In July 2015, a port of the Pocket Edition to Windows 10 was released as the Windows 10 Edition, with full crossplay to other Pocket versions. In January 2017, Microsoft announced that it would no longer maintain the Windows Phone versions of Pocket Edition. On 20 September 2017, with the "Better Together Update", the Pocket Edition was ported to the Xbox One, and was renamed to the Bedrock Edition. The console versions of Minecraft debuted with the Xbox 360 edition, developed by 4J Studios and released on 9 May 2012. Announced as part of the Xbox Live Arcade NEXT promotion, this version introduced a redesigned crafting system, a new control interface, in-game tutorials, split-screen multiplayer, and online play via Xbox Live. Unlike the PC version, its worlds were finite, bordered by invisible walls. Initially, the Xbox 360 version resembled outdated PC versions but received updates to bring it closer to Java Edition before eventually being discontinued. The Xbox One version launched on 5 September 2014, featuring larger worlds and support for more players. Minecraft expanded to PlayStation platforms with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 editions released on 17 December 2013 and 4 September 2014, respectively. Originally planned as a PS4 launch title, it was delayed before its eventual release. A PlayStation Vita version followed in October 2014. Like the Xbox versions, the PlayStation editions were developed by 4J Studios. Nintendo platforms received Minecraft: Wii U Edition on 17 December 2015, with a physical release in North America on 17 June 2016 and in Europe on 30 June. The Nintendo Switch version launched via the eShop on 11 May 2017. During a Nintendo Direct presentation on 13 September 2017, Nintendo announced that Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition, based on the Pocket Edition, would be available for download immediately after the livestream, and a physical copy available on a later date. The game is compatible only with the New Nintendo 3DS or New Nintendo 2DS XL systems and does not work with the original 3DS or 2DS systems. On 20 September 2017, the Better Together Update introduced Bedrock Edition across Xbox One, Windows 10, VR, and mobile platforms, enabling cross-play between these versions. Bedrock Edition later expanded to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, with the latter receiving the update in December 2019, allowing cross-platform play for users with a free Xbox Live account. The Bedrock Edition released a native version for PlayStation 5 on 22 October 2024, while the Xbox Series X/S version launched on 17 June 2025. On 18 December 2018, the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and Wii U versions of Minecraft received their final update and would later become known as "Legacy Console Editions". On 15 January 2019, the New Nintendo 3DS version of Minecraft received its final update, effectively becoming discontinued as well. An educational version of Minecraft, designed for use in schools, launched on 1 November 2016. It is available on Android, ChromeOS, iPadOS, iOS, MacOS, and Windows. On 20 August 2018, Mojang announced that it would bring Education Edition to iPadOS in Autumn 2018. It was released to the App Store on 6 September 2018. On 27 March 2019, it was announced that it would be operated by JD.com in China. On 26 June 2020, a public beta for the Education Edition was made available to Google Play Store compatible Chromebooks. The full game was released to the Google Play Store for Chromebooks on 7 August 2020. On 20 May 2016, China Edition (also known as My World) was announced as a localized edition for China, where it was released under a licensing agreement between NetEase and Mojang. The PC edition was released for public testing on 8 August 2017. The iOS version was released on 15 September 2017, and the Android version was released on 12 October 2017. The PC edition is based on the original Java Edition, while the iOS and Android mobile versions are based on the Bedrock Edition. The edition is free-to-play and had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. This version of Bedrock Edition is exclusive to Microsoft's Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems. The beta release for Windows 10 launched on the Windows Store on 29 July 2015. After nearly a year and a half in beta, Microsoft fully released the version on 19 December 2016. Called the "Ender Update", this release implemented new features to this version of Minecraft like world templates and add-on packs. On 7 June 2022, the Java and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft were merged into a single bundle for purchase on Windows; those who owned one version would automatically gain access to the other version. Both game versions would otherwise remain separate. Around 2011, prior to Minecraft's full release, Mojang collaborated with The Lego Group to create a Lego brick-based Minecraft game called Brickcraft. This would have modified the base Minecraft game to use Lego bricks, which meant adapting the basic 1×1 block to account for larger pieces typically used in Lego sets. Persson worked on an early version called "Project Rex Kwon Do", named after the character of the same name from the film Napoleon Dynamite. Although Lego approved the project and Mojang assigned two developers for six months, it was canceled due to the Lego Group's demands, according to Mojang's Daniel Kaplan. Lego considered buying Mojang to complete the game, but when Microsoft offered over $2 billion for the company, Lego stepped back, unsure of Minecraft's potential. On 26 June 2025, a build of Brickcraft dated 28 June 2012 was published on a community archive website Omniarchive. Initially, Markus Persson planned to support the Oculus Rift with a Minecraft port. However, after Facebook acquired Oculus in 2013, he abruptly canceled the plans, stating, "Facebook creeps me out." In 2016, a community-made mod, Minecraft VR, added VR support for Java Edition, followed by Vivecraft for HTC Vive. Later that year, Microsoft introduced official Oculus Rift support for Windows 10 Edition, leading to the discontinuation of the Minecraft VR mod due to trademark complaints. Vivecraft was endorsed by Minecraft VR contributors for its Rift support. Also available is a Gear VR version, titled Minecraft: Gear VR Edition. Windows Mixed Reality support was added in 2017. On 7 September 2020, Mojang Studios announced that the PlayStation 4 Bedrock version would receive PlayStation VR support later that month. In September 2024, the Minecraft team announced they would no longer support PlayStation VR, which received its final update in March 2025. Music and sound design Minecraft's music and sound effects were produced by German musician Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418. To create the sound effects for the game, Rosenfeld made extensive use of Foley techniques. On learning the processes for the game, he remarked, "Foley's an interesting thing, and I had to learn its subtleties. Early on, I wasn't that knowledgeable about it. It's a whole trial-and-error process. You just make a sound and eventually you go, 'Oh my God, that's it! Get the microphone!' There's no set way of doing anything at all." He reminisced on creating the in-game sound for grass blocks, stating "It turns out that to make grass sounds you don't actually walk on grass and record it, because grass sounds like nothing. What you want to do is get a VHS, break it apart, and just lightly touch the tape." According to Rosenfeld, his favorite sound to design for the game was the hisses of spiders. He elaborates, "I like the spiders. Recording that was a whole day of me researching what a spider sounds like. Turns out, there are spiders that make little screeching sounds, so I think I got this recording of a fire hose, put it in a sampler, and just pitched it around until it sounded like a weird spider was talking to you." Many of the sound design decisions by Rosenfeld were done accidentally or spontaneously. The creeper notably lacks any specific noises apart from a loud fuse-like sound when about to explode; Rosenfeld later recalled "That was just a complete accident by Markus and me [sic]. We just put in a placeholder sound of burning a matchstick. It seemed to work hilariously well, so we kept it." On other sounds, such as those of the zombie, Rosenfeld remarked, "I actually never wanted the zombies so scary. I intentionally made them sound comical. It's nice to hear that they work so well [...]." Rosenfeld remarked that the sound engine was "terrible" to work with, remembering "If you had two song files at once, it [the game engine] would actually crash. There were so many more weird glitches like that the guys never really fixed because they were too busy with the actual game and not the sound engine." The background music in Minecraft consists of instrumental ambient music. To compose the music of Minecraft, Rosenfeld used the package from Ableton Live, along with several additional plug-ins. Speaking on them, Rosenfeld said "They can be pretty much everything from an effect to an entire orchestra. Additionally, I've got some synthesizers that are attached to the computer. Like a Moog Voyager, Dave Smith Prophet 08 and a Virus TI." On 4 March 2011, Rosenfeld released a soundtrack titled Minecraft – Volume Alpha; it includes most of the tracks featured in Minecraft, as well as other music not featured in the game. Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku chose the music in Minecraft as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011. On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second official soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Beta, which included the music that was added in a 2013 "Music Update" for the game. A physical release of Volume Alpha, consisting of CDs, black vinyl, and limited-edition transparent green vinyl LPs, was issued by indie electronic label Ghostly International on 21 August 2015. On 14 August 2020, Ghostly released Volume Beta on CD and vinyl, with alternate color LPs and lenticular cover pressings released in limited quantities. The final update Rosenfeld worked on was 2018's 1.13 Update Aquatic. His music remained the only music in the game until 2020's "Nether Update", introducing pieces from Lena Raine. Since then, other composers have made contributions, including Kumi Tanioka, Samuel Åberg, Aaron Cherof, and Amos Roddy, with Raine remaining as the new primary composer. Ownership of all music besides Rosenfeld's independently released albums has been retained by Microsoft, with their label publishing all of the other artists' releases. Gareth Coker also composed some of the music for the game's mini games from the Legacy Console editions. Rosenfeld had stated his intent to create a third album of music for the game in a 2015 interview with Fact, and confirmed its existence in a 2017 tweet, stating that his work on the record as of then had tallied up to be longer than the previous two albums combined, which in total clocks in at over 3 hours and 18 minutes. However, due to licensing issues with Microsoft, the third volume has since not seen release. On 8 January 2021, Rosenfeld was asked in an interview with Anthony Fantano whether or not there was still a third volume of his music intended for release. Rosenfeld responded, saying, "I have something—I consider it finished—but things have become complicated, especially as Minecraft is now a big property, so I don't know." Reception Minecraft has received critical acclaim, with praise for the creative freedom it grants players in-game, as well as the ease of enabling emergent gameplay. Critics have expressed enjoyment in Minecraft's complex crafting system, commenting that it is an important aspect of the game's open-ended gameplay. Most publications were impressed by the game's "blocky" graphics, with IGN describing them as "instantly memorable". Reviewers also liked the game's adventure elements, noting that the game creates a good balance between exploring and building. The game's multiplayer feature has been generally received favorably, with IGN commenting that "adventuring is always better with friends". Jaz McDougall of PC Gamer said Minecraft is "intuitively interesting and contagiously fun, with an unparalleled scope for creativity and memorable experiences". It has been regarded as having introduced millions of children to the digital world, insofar as its basic game mechanics are logically analogous to computer commands. IGN was disappointed about the troublesome steps needed to set up multiplayer servers, calling it a "hassle". Critics also said that visual glitches occur periodically. Despite its release out of beta in 2011, GameSpot said the game had an "unfinished feel", adding that some game elements seem "incomplete or thrown together in haste". A review of the alpha version, by Scott Munro of the Daily Record, called it "already something special" and urged readers to buy it. Jim Rossignol of Rock Paper Shotgun also recommended the alpha of the game, calling it "a kind of generative 8-bit Lego Stalker". On 17 September 2010, gaming webcomic Penny Arcade began a series of comics and news posts about the addictiveness of the game. The Xbox 360 version was generally received positively by critics, but did not receive as much praise as the PC version. Although reviewers were disappointed by the lack of features such as mod support and content from the PC version, they acclaimed the port's addition of a tutorial and in-game tips and crafting recipes, saying that they make the game more user-friendly. The Xbox One Edition was one of the best received ports, being praised for its relatively large worlds. The PlayStation 3 Edition also received generally favorable reviews, being compared to the Xbox 360 Edition and praised for its well-adapted controls. The PlayStation 4 edition was the best received port to date, being praised for having 36 times larger worlds than the PlayStation 3 edition and described as nearly identical to the Xbox One edition. The PlayStation Vita Edition received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for its technical limitations. The Wii U version received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for a lack of GamePad integration. The 3DS version received mixed reviews, being criticized for its high price, technical issues, and lack of cross-platform play. The Nintendo Switch Edition received fairly positive reviews from critics, being praised, like other modern ports, for its relatively larger worlds. Minecraft: Pocket Edition initially received mixed reviews from critics. Although reviewers appreciated the game's intuitive controls, they were disappointed by the lack of content. The inability to collect resources and craft items, as well as the limited types of blocks and lack of hostile mobs, were especially criticized. After updates added more content, Pocket Edition started receiving more positive reviews. Reviewers complimented the controls and the graphics, but still noted a lack of content. Minecraft surpassed over a million purchases less than a month after entering its beta phase in early 2011. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth, and various unpaid references in popular media such as the Penny Arcade webcomic. By April 2011, Persson estimated that Minecraft had made €23 million (US$33 million) in revenue, with 800,000 sales of the alpha version of the game, and over 1 million sales of the beta version. In November 2011, prior to the game's full release, Minecraft beta surpassed 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. By March 2012, Minecraft had become the 6th best-selling PC game of all time. As of 10 October 2014[update], the game had sold 17 million copies on PC, becoming the best-selling PC game of all time. On 25 February 2014, the game reached 100 million registered users. By May 2019, 180 million copies had been sold across all platforms, making it the single best-selling video game of all time. The free-to-play Minecraft China version had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. By 2023, the game had sold over 300 million copies. As of April 2025, Minecraft has sold over 350 million copies. The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft became profitable within the first day of the game's release in 2012, when the game broke the Xbox Live sales records with 400,000 players online. Within a week of being on the Xbox Live Marketplace, Minecraft sold a million copies. GameSpot announced in December 2012 that Minecraft sold over 4.48 million copies since the game debuted on Xbox Live Arcade in May 2012. In 2012, Minecraft was the most purchased title on Xbox Live Arcade; it was also the fourth most played title on Xbox Live based on average unique users per day. As of 4 April 2014[update], the Xbox 360 version has sold 12 million copies. In addition, Minecraft: Pocket Edition has reached a figure of 21 million in sales. The PlayStation 3 Edition sold one million copies in five weeks. The release of the game's PlayStation Vita version boosted Minecraft sales by 79%, outselling both PS3 and PS4 debut releases and becoming the largest Minecraft launch on a PlayStation console. The PS Vita version sold 100,000 digital copies in Japan within the first two months of release, according to an announcement by SCE Japan Asia. By January 2015, 500,000 digital copies of Minecraft were sold in Japan across all PlayStation platforms, with a surge in primary school children purchasing the PS Vita version. As of 2022, the Vita version has sold over 1.65 million physical copies in Japan, making it the best-selling Vita game in the country. Minecraft helped improve Microsoft's total first-party revenue by $63 million for the 2015 second quarter. The game, including all of its versions, had over 112 million monthly active players by September 2019. On its 11th anniversary in May 2020, the company announced that Minecraft had reached over 200 million copies sold across platforms with over 126 million monthly active players. By April 2021, the number of active monthly users had climbed to 140 million. In July 2010, PC Gamer listed Minecraft as the fourth-best game to play at work. In December of that year, Good Game selected Minecraft as their choice for Best Downloadable Game of 2010, Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it the "game of the year". Indie DB awarded the game the 2010 Indie of the Year award as chosen by voters, in addition to two out of five Editor's Choice awards for Most Innovative and Best Singleplayer Indie. It was also awarded Game of the Year by PC Gamer UK. The game was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Technical Excellence, and Excellence in Design awards at the March 2011 Independent Games Festival and won the Grand Prize and the community-voted Audience Award. At Game Developers Choice Awards 2011, Minecraft won awards in the categories for Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game and Innovation Award, winning every award for which it was nominated. It also won GameCity's video game arts award. On 5 May 2011, Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that would be displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of The Art of Video Games exhibit that opened on 16 March 2012. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Minecraft won the award for Best Independent Game and was nominated in the Best PC Game category. In 2012, at the British Academy Video Games Awards, Minecraft was nominated in the GAME Award of 2011 category and Persson received The Special Award. In 2012, Minecraft XBLA was awarded a Golden Joystick Award in the Best Downloadable Game category, and a TIGA Games Industry Award in the Best Arcade Game category. In 2013, it was nominated as the family game of the year at the British Academy Video Games Awards. During the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft for "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year". Minecraft Console Edition won the award for TIGA Game Of The Year in 2014. In 2015, the game placed 6th on USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list. In 2016, Minecraft placed 6th on Time's The 50 Best Video Games of All Time list. Minecraft was nominated for the 2013 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite App, but lost to Temple Run. It was nominated for the 2014 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Video Game, but lost to Just Dance 2014. The game later won the award for the Most Addicting Game at the 2015 Kids' Choice Awards. In addition, the Java Edition was nominated for "Favorite Video Game" at the 2018 Kids' Choice Awards, while the game itself won the "Still Playing" award at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards, as well as the "Favorite Video Game" award at the 2020 Kids' Choice Awards. Minecraft also won "Stream Game of the Year" at inaugural Streamer Awards in 2021. The game later garnered a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award nomination for Favorite Video Game in 2021, and won the same category in 2022 and 2023. At the Golden Joystick Awards 2025, it won the Still Playing Award - PC and Console. Minecraft has been subject to several notable controversies. In June 2014, Mojang announced that it would begin enforcing the portion of Minecraft's end-user license agreement (EULA) which prohibits servers from giving in-game advantages to players in exchange for donations or payments. Spokesperson Owen Hill stated that servers could still require players to pay a fee to access the server and could sell in-game cosmetic items. The change was supported by Persson, citing emails he received from parents of children who had spent hundreds of dollars on servers. The Minecraft community and server owners protested, arguing that the EULA's terms were more broad than Mojang was claiming, that the crackdown would force smaller servers to shut down for financial reasons, and that Mojang was suppressing competition for its own Minecraft Realms subscription service. The controversy contributed to Notch's decision to sell Mojang. In 2020, Mojang announced an eventual change to the Java Edition to require a login from a Microsoft account rather than a Mojang account, the latter of which would be sunsetted. This also required Java Edition players to create Xbox network Gamertags. Mojang defended the move to Microsoft accounts by saying that improved security could be offered, including two-factor authentication, blocking cyberbullies in chat, and improved parental controls. The community responded with intense backlash, citing various technical difficulties encountered in the process and how account migration would be mandatory, even for those who do not play on servers. As of 10 March 2022, Microsoft required that all players migrate in order to maintain access the Java Edition of Minecraft. Mojang announced a deadline of 19 September 2023 for account migration, after which all legacy Mojang accounts became inaccessible and unable to be migrated. In June 2022, Mojang added a player-reporting feature in Java Edition. Players could report other players on multiplayer servers for sending messages prohibited by the Xbox Live Code of Conduct; report categories included profane language,[l] substance abuse, hate speech, threats of violence, and nudity. If a player was found to be in violation of Xbox Community Standards, they would be banned from all servers for a specific period of time or permanently. The update containing the report feature (1.19.1) was released on 27 July 2022. Mojang received substantial backlash and protest from community members, one of the most common complaints being that banned players would be forbidden from joining any server, even private ones. Others took issue to what they saw as Microsoft increasing control over its player base and exercising censorship, leading some to start a hashtag #saveminecraft and dub the version "1.19.84", a reference to the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The "Mob Vote" was an online event organized by Mojang in which the Minecraft community voted between three original mob concepts; initially, the winning mob was to be implemented in a future update, while the losing mobs were scrapped, though after the first mob vote this was changed, and losing mobs would now have a chance to come to the game in the future. The first Mob Vote was held during Minecon Earth 2017 and became an annual event starting with Minecraft Live 2020. The Mob Vote was often criticized for forcing players to choose one mob instead of implementing all three, causing divisions and flaming within the community, and potentially allowing internet bots and Minecraft content creators with large fanbases to conduct vote brigading. The Mob Vote was also blamed for a perceived lack of new content added to Minecraft since Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang in 2014. The 2023 Mob Vote featured three passive mobs—the crab, the penguin, and the armadillo—with voting scheduled to start on 13 October. In response, a Change.org petition was created on 6 October, demanding that Mojang eliminate the Mob Vote and instead implement all three mobs going forward. The petition received approximately 445,000 signatures by 13 October and was joined by calls to boycott the Mob Vote, as well as a partially tongue-in-cheek "revolutionary" propaganda campaign in which sympathizers created anti-Mojang and pro-boycott posters in the vein of real 20th century propaganda posters. Mojang did not release an official response to the boycott, and the Mob Vote otherwise proceeded normally, with the armadillo winning the vote. In September 2024, as part of a blog post detailing their future plans for Minecraft's development, Mojang announced the Mob Vote would be retired. Cultural impact In September 2019, The Guardian classified Minecraft as the best video game of the 21st century to date, and in November 2019, Polygon called it the "most important game of the decade" in its 2010s "decade in review". In June 2020, Minecraft was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Minecraft is recognized as one of the first successful games to use an early access model to draw in sales prior to its full release version to help fund development. As Minecraft helped to bolster indie game development in the early 2010s, it also helped to popularize the use of the early access model in indie game development. Social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit have played a significant role in popularizing Minecraft. Research conducted by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania showed that one-third of Minecraft players learned about the game via Internet videos. In 2010, Minecraft-related videos began to gain influence on YouTube, often made by commentators. The videos usually contain screen-capture footage of the game and voice-overs. Common coverage in the videos includes creations made by players, walkthroughs of various tasks, and parodies of works in popular culture. By May 2012, over four million Minecraft-related YouTube videos had been uploaded. The game would go on to be a prominent fixture within YouTube's gaming scene during the entire 2010s; in 2014, it was the second-most searched term on the entire platform. By 2018, it was still YouTube's biggest game globally. Some popular commentators have received employment at Machinima, a now-defunct gaming video company that owned a highly watched entertainment channel on YouTube. The Yogscast is a British company that regularly produces Minecraft videos; their YouTube channel has attained billions of views, and their panel at Minecon 2011 had the highest attendance. Another well-known YouTube personality is Jordan Maron, known online as CaptainSparklez, who has also created many Minecraft music parodies, including "Revenge", a parody of Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love". Minecraft's popularity on YouTube was described by Polygon as quietly dominant, although in 2019, thanks in part to PewDiePie's playthroughs of the game, Minecraft experienced a visible uptick in popularity on the platform. Longer-running series include Far Lands or Bust, dedicated to reaching the obsolete "Far Lands" glitch by foot on an older version of the game. YouTube announced that on 14 December 2021 that the total amount of Minecraft-related views on the website had exceeded one trillion. Minecraft has been referenced by other video games, such as Torchlight II, Team Fortress 2, Borderlands 2, Choplifter HD, Super Meat Boy, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Binding of Isaac, The Stanley Parable, and FTL: Faster Than Light. Minecraft is officially represented in downloadable content for the crossover fighter Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with Steve as a playable character with a moveset including references to building, crafting, and redstone, alongside an Overworld-themed stage. It was also referenced by electronic music artist Deadmau5 in his performances. The game is also referenced heavily in "Informative Murder Porn", the second episode of the seventeenth season of the animated television series South Park. In 2025, A Minecraft Movie was released. It made $313 million in the box office in the first week, a record-breaking opening for a video game adaptation. Minecraft has been noted as a cultural touchstone for Generation Z, as many of the generation's members played the game at a young age. The possible applications of Minecraft have been discussed extensively, especially in the fields of computer-aided design (CAD) and education. In a panel at Minecon 2011, a Swedish developer discussed the possibility of using the game to redesign public buildings and parks, stating that rendering using Minecraft was much more user-friendly for the community, making it easier to envision the functionality of new buildings and parks. In 2012, a member of the Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab, Cody Sumter, said: "Notch hasn't just built a game. He's tricked 40 million people into learning to use a CAD program." Various software has been developed to allow virtual designs to be printed using professional 3D printers or personal printers such as MakerBot and RepRap. In September 2012, Mojang began the Block by Block project in cooperation with UN Habitat to create real-world environments in Minecraft. The project allows young people who live in those environments to participate in designing the changes they would like to see. Using Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the Minecraft servers and modify their own neighborhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's managing director, called the game "the perfect tool to facilitate this process", adding "The three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat's Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016." Mojang signed Minecraft building community, FyreUK, to help render the environments into Minecraft. The first pilot project began in Kibera, one of Nairobi's informal settlements and is in the planning phase. The Block by Block project is based on an earlier initiative started in October 2011, Mina Kvarter (My Block), which gave young people in Swedish communities a tool to visualize how they wanted to change their part of town. According to Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualize urban planning ideas without necessarily having a training in architecture. The ideas presented by the citizens were a template for political decisions. In April 2014, the Danish Geodata Agency generated all of Denmark in fullscale in Minecraft based on their own geodata. This is possible because Denmark is one of the flattest countries with the highest point at 171 meters (ranking as the country with the 30th smallest elevation span), where the limit in default Minecraft was around 192 meters above in-game sea level when the project was completed. Taking advantage of the game's accessibility where other websites are censored, the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders has used an open Minecraft server to create the Uncensored Library, a repository within the game of journalism by authors from countries (including Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam) who have been censored and arrested, such as Jamal Khashoggi. The neoclassical virtual building was created over about 250 hours by an international team of 24 people. Despite its unpredictable nature, Minecraft speedrunning, where players time themselves from spawning into a new world to reaching The End and defeating the Ender Dragon boss, is popular. Some speedrunners use a combination of mods, external programs, and debug menus, while other runners play the game in a more vanilla or more consistency-oriented way. Minecraft has been used in educational settings through initiatives such as MinecraftEdu, founded in 2011 to make the game affordable and accessible for schools in collaboration with Mojang. MinecraftEdu provided features allowing teachers to monitor student progress, including screenshot submissions as evidence of lesson completion, and by 2012 reported that approximately 250,000 students worldwide had access to the platform. Mojang also developed Minecraft: Education Edition with pre-built lesson plans for up to 30 students in a closed environment. Educators have used Minecraft to teach subjects such as history, language arts, and science through custom-built environments, including reconstructions of historical landmarks and large-scale models of biological structures such as animal cells. The introduction of redstone blocks enabled the construction of functional virtual machines such as a hard drive and an 8-bit computer. Mods have been created to use these mechanics for teaching programming. In 2014, the British Museum announced a project to reproduce its building and exhibits in Minecraft in collaboration with the public. Microsoft and Code.org have offered Minecraft-based tutorials and activities designed to teach programming, reporting by 2018 that more than 85 million children had used their resources. In 2025, the Musée de Minéralogie in Paris held a temporary exhibition titled "Minerals in Minecraft." Following the initial surge in popularity of Minecraft in 2010, other video games were criticised for having various similarities to Minecraft, and some were described as being "clones", often due to a direct inspiration from Minecraft, or a superficial similarity. Examples include Ace of Spades, CastleMiner, CraftWorld, FortressCraft, Terraria, BlockWorld 3D, Total Miner, and Luanti (formerly Minetest). David Frampton, designer of The Blockheads, reported that one failure of his 2D game was the "low resolution pixel art" that too closely resembled the art in Minecraft, which resulted in "some resistance" from fans. A homebrew adaptation of the alpha version of Minecraft for the Nintendo DS, titled DScraft, has been released; it has been noted for its similarity to the original game considering the technical limitations of the system. In response to Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang and their Minecraft IP, various developers announced further clone titles developed specifically for Nintendo's consoles, as they were the only major platforms not to officially receive Minecraft at the time. These clone titles include UCraft (Nexis Games), Cube Life: Island Survival (Cypronia), Discovery (Noowanda), Battleminer (Wobbly Tooth Games), Cube Creator 3D (Big John Games), and Stone Shire (Finger Gun Games). Despite this, the fears of fans were unfounded, with official Minecraft releases on Nintendo consoles eventually resuming. Markus Persson made another similar game, Minicraft, for a Ludum Dare competition in 2011. In 2025, Persson announced through a poll on his X account that he was considering developing a spiritual successor to Minecraft. He later clarified that he was "100% serious", and that he had "basically announced Minecraft 2". Within days, however, Persson cancelled the plans after speaking to his team. In November 2024, artificial intelligence companies Decart and Etched released Oasis, an artificially generated version of Minecraft, as a proof of concept. Every in-game element is completely AI-generated in real time and the model does not store world data, leading to "hallucinations" such as items and blocks appearing that were not there before. In January 2026, indie game developer Unomelon announced that their voxel sandbox game Allumeria would be playable in Steam Next Fest that year. On 10 February, Mojang issued a DMCA takedown of Allumeria on Steam through Valve, alleging the game was infringing on Minecraft's copyright. Some reports suggested that the takedown may have used an automatic AI copyright claiming service. The DMCA was later withdrawn. Minecon was an annual official fan convention dedicated to Minecraft. The first full Minecon was held in November 2011 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The event included the official launch of Minecraft; keynote speeches, including one by Persson; building and costume contests; Minecraft-themed breakout classes; exhibits by leading gaming and Minecraft-related companies; commemorative merchandise; and autograph and picture times with Mojang employees and well-known contributors from the Minecraft community. In 2016, Minecon was held in-person for the last time, with the following years featuring annual "Minecon Earth" livestreams on minecraft.net and YouTube instead. These livestreams, later rebranded to "Minecraft Live", included the mob/biome votes, and announcements of new game updates. In 2025, "Minecraft Live" became a biannual event as part of Minecraft's changing update schedule.[citation needed] Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson#cite_ref-33] | [TOKENS: 3525] |
Contents Markus Persson Markus Alexej Persson (/ˈpɪərsən/ ⓘ PEER-sən, Swedish: [ˈmǎrːkɵs ˈpæ̌ːʂɔn] ⓘ; born 1 June 1979), known by the pseudonym Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is the creator of Minecraft, the best-selling video game in history. He founded the video game development company Mojang Studios in 2009. Persson began developing video games at an early age. His commercial success began after he published an early version of Minecraft in 2009. Prior to the game's official retail release in 2011, it had sold over four million copies. After this point Persson stood down as the lead designer and transferred his creative authority to Jens Bergensten. In September 2014 Persson announced his intention to leave Mojang, and in November of that year the company was sold to Microsoft reportedly for US$2.5 billion, which made him a billionaire. Since 2016 several of Persson's posts on Twitter regarding feminism, race, and transgender rights have caused public controversies. He has been described as "an increasingly polarizing figure, tweeting offensive statements regarding race, the LGBTQ community, gender, and other topics." In an effort to distance itself from Persson, Microsoft removed mentions of his name from Minecraft (excluding one instance in the game's end credits) and did not invite him to the game's tenth anniversary celebration. In 2015 he co-founded a separate game studio called Rubberbrain, which was relaunched in 2024 as Bitshift Entertainment. Early life Markus Alexej Persson was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to a Finnish mother, Ritva, and a Swedish father, Birger, on 1 June 1979. He has one sister. He grew up in Edsbyn until he was seven years old, when his family moved back to Stockholm. In Edsbyn, Persson's father worked for the railroad, and his mother was a nurse. He spent much time outdoors in Edsbyn, exploring the woods with his friends. When Persson was about seven years old, his parents divorced, and he and his sister lived with their mother. His father moved to a cabin in the countryside. Persson said in an interview that they experienced food insecurity around once a month. Persson lost contact with his father for several years after the divorce. According to Persson, his father suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and medication abuse, and went to jail for robberies. While his father had somewhat recovered during Persson's early life, his father relapsed, contributing to the divorce. His sister also experimented with drugs and ran away from home. He had gained interest in video games at an early age. His father was "a really big nerd", who built his own modem and taught Persson to use the family's Commodore 128. On it, Persson played bootleg games and loaded in various type-in programs from computer magazines with the help of his sister. The first game he purchased with his own money was The Bard's Tale. He began programming on his father's Commodore 128 home computer at the age of seven. He produced his first game at the age of eight, a text-based adventure game. By 1994 Persson knew he wanted to become a video game developer, but his teachers advised him to study graphic design, which he did from ages 15 to 18. Persson, although introverted, was well-liked by his peers, but after entering secondary school was a "loner" and reportedly had only one friend. He spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. He managed to reverse-engineer the Doom engine, which he continued to take great pride in as of 2014[update]. He never finished high school, but was reportedly a good student. Career Persson started his career working as a web designer. He later found employment at Game Federation, where he met Rolf Jansson. The pair worked in their spare time to build the 2006 video game Wurm Online. The game was released through a new entity, "Mojang Specifications AB". Persson left the project in late 2007. As Persson wanted to reuse the name "Mojang", Jansson agreed to rename the company to Onetoofree AB. Between 2004 and 2009 Persson worked as a game developer for Midasplayer (later known as King). There, he worked as a programmer, mostly building browser games made in Flash. He later worked as a programmer for jAlbum. Prior to creating Minecraft, Persson developed multiple, small games. He also entered a number of game design competitions and participated in discussions on the TIGSource forums, a web forum for independent game developers. One of Persson's more notable personal projects was called RubyDung, an isometric three-dimensional base-building game like RollerCoaster Tycoon and Dwarf Fortress. While working on RubyDung, Persson experimented with a first-person view mode similar to that found in Dungeon Keeper. However, he felt the graphics were too pixelated and omitted this mode. In 2009 Persson found inspiration in Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game. Infiniminer heavily influenced his future work on RubyDung, and was behind Persson's reasoning for returning the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals to the game. RubyDung is the earliest known Minecraft prototype created by Persson. On 17 May 2009 Persson released the original edition (later called "Classic version") of Minecraft on the TIGSource forums. He regularly updated the game based on feedback from TIGSource users. Persson released several new versions of Minecraft throughout 2009 and 2010, going through several phases of development including Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev. On 30 June 2010 Persson released the game's Alpha version. While working on the pre-Alpha version of Minecraft, Persson continued working at jAlbum. In 2010, after the release and subsequent success of Minecraft's Alpha version, Persson moved from a full-time role to a part-time role at jAlbum. He left jAlbum later that same year. In September 2010 Persson travelled to Valve Corporation's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, United States, where he took part in a programming exercise and met Gabe Newell. Persson was subsequently offered a job at Valve, which he turned down in order to continue work on Minecraft. On 20 December 2010 Minecraft moved into its beta phase and began expanding to other platforms, including mobile. In January 2011 Minecraft reached one million registered accounts. Six months afterwards, it reached ten million. The game has sold over four million copies by 7 November 2011. Mojang held the first Minecon from 18 to 19 November 2011 to celebrate its full release, and subsequently made it an annual event. Following this, on 11 December 2011, Persson transferred creative control of Minecraft to Jens Bergensten and began working on another game title, 0x10c, although he reportedly abandoned the project around 2013. In 2013 Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million and profits of $129 million. Persson has stated that, due to the intense media attention and public pressure, he became exhausted with running Minecraft and Mojang. In a September 2014 blog post he shared his realization that he "didn't have the connection to my fans I thought I had", that he had "become a symbol", and that he did not wish to be responsible for Mojang's increasingly large operation. In June 2014 Persson tweeted "Anyone want to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life? Getting hate for trying to do the right thing is not my gig", reportedly partly as a joke. Persson controlled a 71% stake in Mojang at the time. The offer attracted significant interest from Activision Blizzard, EA, and Microsoft. Forbes later reported that Microsoft wanted to purchase the game as a "tax dodge" to turn their taxable excess liquid cash into other assets. In September 2014 Microsoft agreed to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion, making Persson a billionaire. He then left the company after the deal was finalised in November. Since leaving Mojang, Persson has worked on several small projects. On 23 June 2014 he founded a company with Porsér called Rubberbrain AB; the company had no games by 2021, despite spending SEK 60 million. The company was relaunched as Bitshift Entertainment, LLC on 28 March 2024. Persson expressed interest in creating a new video game studio in 2020, and in developing virtual reality games. He has also since created a series of narrative-driven immersive events called ".party()", which uses extensive visual effects and has been hosted in multiple cities. At the beginning of 2025 Persson decided to create a spiritual successor to Minecraft, referred to as "Minecraft 2", in response to the results of a poll on X. However, after speaking to his team, he shortly went against this in favour of developing the other choice on his Twitter poll, a roguelike titled Levers and Chests. Games Persson's most popular creation is the survival sandbox game Minecraft, which was first publicly available on 17 May 2009 and fully released on 18 November 2011. Persson left his job as a game developer to work on Minecraft full-time until completion. In early 2011, Mojang AB sold the one millionth copy of the game, several months later their second, and several more their third. Mojang hired several new staff members for the Minecraft team, while Persson passed the lead developer role to Jens Bergensten. He stopped working on Minecraft after a deal with Microsoft to sell Mojang for $2.5 billion. This brought his net worth to US$1.5 billion. Persson and Jakob Porsér came up with the idea for Scrolls including elements from board games and collectible card games. Persson noted that he will not be actively involved in development of the game and that Porsér will be developing it. Persson revealed on his Tumblr blog on 5 August 2011 that he was being sued by a Swedish law firm representing Bethesda Softworks over the trademarked name of Scrolls, claiming that it conflicted with their The Elder Scrolls series of games. On 17 August 2011 Persson challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 tournament to decide the outcome of the naming dispute. On 27 September 2011 Persson confirmed that the lawsuit was going to court. ZeniMax Media, owner of Bethesda Softworks, announced the lawsuit's settlement in March 2012. The settlement allowed Mojang to continue using the Scrolls trademark. In 2018, Scrolls was made available free of charge and renamed to Caller's Bane. Cliffhorse is a humorous game programmed in two hours using the Unity game engine and free assets. The game took inspiration from Skyrim's physics engine, "the more embarrassing minimum-effort Greenlight games", Goat Simulator, and Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. The game was released to Microsoft Windows systems as an early access and honourware game on the first day of E3 2014, instructing users to donate Dogecoin to "buy" the game before downloading it. The game accumulated over 280,000 dogecoins. Following the end to his involvement with Minecraft, Persson began pre-production of an alternate reality space game set in the distant future in March 2012. On April Fools' Day Mojang launched a satirical website for Mars Effect (parody of Mass Effect), citing the lawsuit with Bethesda as an inspiration. However, the gameplay elements remained true and on 4 April, Mojang revealed 0x10c (pronounced "Ten to the C") as a space sandbox title. Persson officially halted game production in August 2013. However, C418, the composer of the game's soundtrack (as well as that of Minecraft), released an album of the work he had made for the game. In 2013, Persson made a free game called Shambles in the Unity game engine. Persson has also participated in several Ludum Dare 48-hour game making competitions. Personal life In 2011 Persson married Elin Zetterstrand, whom he had dated for four years before. Zetterstrand was a former moderator on the Minecraft forums. They had a daughter together, but by mid-2012, he began to see little of her. On 15 August 2012 he announced that he and his wife had filed for divorce. The divorce was finalised later that year. On 14 December 2011 Persson's father committed suicide with a handgun after drinking heavily. In an interview with The New Yorker, Persson said of his father: When I decided I wanted to quit my day job and work on my own games, he was the only person who supported my decision. He was proud of me and made sure I knew. When I added the monsters to Minecraft, he told me that the dark caves became too scary for him. But I think that was the only true criticism I ever heard from him. Persson later admitted that he himself suffered from depression and various highs and lows in his mood. Persson has criticised the stance of large game companies on piracy. He once stated that "piracy is not theft", viewing unauthorised downloads as potential future customers. Persson stated himself to be a member of the Pirate Party of Sweden in 2011. He is also a member of Mensa. He has donated to numerous charities, including Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Under his direction, Mojang spent a week developing Catacomb Snatch for the Humble Indie Bundle and raised US$458,248 for charity. He also donated $250,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2012. In 2011 he gave $3 million in dividends back to Mojang employees. According to Forbes, his net worth in 2023 was around $1.2 billion. In 2014 Persson was one of the biggest taxpayers in Sweden. Around 2014, he lived in a multi-level penthouse in Östermalm, Stockholm, an area he described as "where the rich people live". In December 2014 Persson purchased a home in Trousdale Estates, a neighbourhood in Beverly Hills, California, in the United States, for $70 million, a record sales price for Beverly Hills at the time. Persson reportedly outbid Beyoncé and Jay-Z for the property. Persson began receiving criticism for political and social opinions he expressed on social media as early as 2016. November 30, 2017 In 2017, he proposed a heterosexual pride holiday, and wrote that those who opposed the idea "deserve to be shot." After facing backlash, he deleted the tweets and rescinded his statements, writing, "So yeah, it's about pride of daring to express, not about pride of being who you are. I get it now." Later in the year, he wrote that feminism is a "social disease" and called the video game developer and feminist Zoë Quinn a "cunt", although he was generally critical of the GamerGate movement. He has described intersectional feminism as a "framework for bigotry" and the use of the word mansplaining as being sexist. Also in 2017, Persson tweeted that "It's okay to be white". Later that year, he stated that he believed in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. In 2019, he tweeted referencing QAnon, saying "Q is legit. Don't trust the media." Later in 2019, he tweeted in response to a pro-transgender internet meme that, "You are absolutely evil if you want to encourage delusion. What happened to not stigmatizing mental illness?" He then also promoted claims that people were fined for "using the wrong pronoun". However, after facing backlash, he tweeted a day afterwards that he had "no idea what [being trans is] like of course, but it's inspiring as hell when people open up and choose to actually be who they know themselves as. Not because it's a cool choice, because it's a big step. I gues [sic] that's actually cool nvm". Later that year, Microsoft removed two mentions of Persson's name in the "19w13a" snapshot of Minecraft and did not invite him to the 10-year anniversary celebration of the game. A spokesperson for Microsoft stated that his views "do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang". He is still mentioned in the End Poem ("a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus").[citation needed] Awards References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson#cite_ref-34] | [TOKENS: 3525] |
Contents Markus Persson Markus Alexej Persson (/ˈpɪərsən/ ⓘ PEER-sən, Swedish: [ˈmǎrːkɵs ˈpæ̌ːʂɔn] ⓘ; born 1 June 1979), known by the pseudonym Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is the creator of Minecraft, the best-selling video game in history. He founded the video game development company Mojang Studios in 2009. Persson began developing video games at an early age. His commercial success began after he published an early version of Minecraft in 2009. Prior to the game's official retail release in 2011, it had sold over four million copies. After this point Persson stood down as the lead designer and transferred his creative authority to Jens Bergensten. In September 2014 Persson announced his intention to leave Mojang, and in November of that year the company was sold to Microsoft reportedly for US$2.5 billion, which made him a billionaire. Since 2016 several of Persson's posts on Twitter regarding feminism, race, and transgender rights have caused public controversies. He has been described as "an increasingly polarizing figure, tweeting offensive statements regarding race, the LGBTQ community, gender, and other topics." In an effort to distance itself from Persson, Microsoft removed mentions of his name from Minecraft (excluding one instance in the game's end credits) and did not invite him to the game's tenth anniversary celebration. In 2015 he co-founded a separate game studio called Rubberbrain, which was relaunched in 2024 as Bitshift Entertainment. Early life Markus Alexej Persson was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to a Finnish mother, Ritva, and a Swedish father, Birger, on 1 June 1979. He has one sister. He grew up in Edsbyn until he was seven years old, when his family moved back to Stockholm. In Edsbyn, Persson's father worked for the railroad, and his mother was a nurse. He spent much time outdoors in Edsbyn, exploring the woods with his friends. When Persson was about seven years old, his parents divorced, and he and his sister lived with their mother. His father moved to a cabin in the countryside. Persson said in an interview that they experienced food insecurity around once a month. Persson lost contact with his father for several years after the divorce. According to Persson, his father suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and medication abuse, and went to jail for robberies. While his father had somewhat recovered during Persson's early life, his father relapsed, contributing to the divorce. His sister also experimented with drugs and ran away from home. He had gained interest in video games at an early age. His father was "a really big nerd", who built his own modem and taught Persson to use the family's Commodore 128. On it, Persson played bootleg games and loaded in various type-in programs from computer magazines with the help of his sister. The first game he purchased with his own money was The Bard's Tale. He began programming on his father's Commodore 128 home computer at the age of seven. He produced his first game at the age of eight, a text-based adventure game. By 1994 Persson knew he wanted to become a video game developer, but his teachers advised him to study graphic design, which he did from ages 15 to 18. Persson, although introverted, was well-liked by his peers, but after entering secondary school was a "loner" and reportedly had only one friend. He spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. He managed to reverse-engineer the Doom engine, which he continued to take great pride in as of 2014[update]. He never finished high school, but was reportedly a good student. Career Persson started his career working as a web designer. He later found employment at Game Federation, where he met Rolf Jansson. The pair worked in their spare time to build the 2006 video game Wurm Online. The game was released through a new entity, "Mojang Specifications AB". Persson left the project in late 2007. As Persson wanted to reuse the name "Mojang", Jansson agreed to rename the company to Onetoofree AB. Between 2004 and 2009 Persson worked as a game developer for Midasplayer (later known as King). There, he worked as a programmer, mostly building browser games made in Flash. He later worked as a programmer for jAlbum. Prior to creating Minecraft, Persson developed multiple, small games. He also entered a number of game design competitions and participated in discussions on the TIGSource forums, a web forum for independent game developers. One of Persson's more notable personal projects was called RubyDung, an isometric three-dimensional base-building game like RollerCoaster Tycoon and Dwarf Fortress. While working on RubyDung, Persson experimented with a first-person view mode similar to that found in Dungeon Keeper. However, he felt the graphics were too pixelated and omitted this mode. In 2009 Persson found inspiration in Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game. Infiniminer heavily influenced his future work on RubyDung, and was behind Persson's reasoning for returning the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals to the game. RubyDung is the earliest known Minecraft prototype created by Persson. On 17 May 2009 Persson released the original edition (later called "Classic version") of Minecraft on the TIGSource forums. He regularly updated the game based on feedback from TIGSource users. Persson released several new versions of Minecraft throughout 2009 and 2010, going through several phases of development including Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev. On 30 June 2010 Persson released the game's Alpha version. While working on the pre-Alpha version of Minecraft, Persson continued working at jAlbum. In 2010, after the release and subsequent success of Minecraft's Alpha version, Persson moved from a full-time role to a part-time role at jAlbum. He left jAlbum later that same year. In September 2010 Persson travelled to Valve Corporation's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, United States, where he took part in a programming exercise and met Gabe Newell. Persson was subsequently offered a job at Valve, which he turned down in order to continue work on Minecraft. On 20 December 2010 Minecraft moved into its beta phase and began expanding to other platforms, including mobile. In January 2011 Minecraft reached one million registered accounts. Six months afterwards, it reached ten million. The game has sold over four million copies by 7 November 2011. Mojang held the first Minecon from 18 to 19 November 2011 to celebrate its full release, and subsequently made it an annual event. Following this, on 11 December 2011, Persson transferred creative control of Minecraft to Jens Bergensten and began working on another game title, 0x10c, although he reportedly abandoned the project around 2013. In 2013 Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million and profits of $129 million. Persson has stated that, due to the intense media attention and public pressure, he became exhausted with running Minecraft and Mojang. In a September 2014 blog post he shared his realization that he "didn't have the connection to my fans I thought I had", that he had "become a symbol", and that he did not wish to be responsible for Mojang's increasingly large operation. In June 2014 Persson tweeted "Anyone want to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life? Getting hate for trying to do the right thing is not my gig", reportedly partly as a joke. Persson controlled a 71% stake in Mojang at the time. The offer attracted significant interest from Activision Blizzard, EA, and Microsoft. Forbes later reported that Microsoft wanted to purchase the game as a "tax dodge" to turn their taxable excess liquid cash into other assets. In September 2014 Microsoft agreed to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion, making Persson a billionaire. He then left the company after the deal was finalised in November. Since leaving Mojang, Persson has worked on several small projects. On 23 June 2014 he founded a company with Porsér called Rubberbrain AB; the company had no games by 2021, despite spending SEK 60 million. The company was relaunched as Bitshift Entertainment, LLC on 28 March 2024. Persson expressed interest in creating a new video game studio in 2020, and in developing virtual reality games. He has also since created a series of narrative-driven immersive events called ".party()", which uses extensive visual effects and has been hosted in multiple cities. At the beginning of 2025 Persson decided to create a spiritual successor to Minecraft, referred to as "Minecraft 2", in response to the results of a poll on X. However, after speaking to his team, he shortly went against this in favour of developing the other choice on his Twitter poll, a roguelike titled Levers and Chests. Games Persson's most popular creation is the survival sandbox game Minecraft, which was first publicly available on 17 May 2009 and fully released on 18 November 2011. Persson left his job as a game developer to work on Minecraft full-time until completion. In early 2011, Mojang AB sold the one millionth copy of the game, several months later their second, and several more their third. Mojang hired several new staff members for the Minecraft team, while Persson passed the lead developer role to Jens Bergensten. He stopped working on Minecraft after a deal with Microsoft to sell Mojang for $2.5 billion. This brought his net worth to US$1.5 billion. Persson and Jakob Porsér came up with the idea for Scrolls including elements from board games and collectible card games. Persson noted that he will not be actively involved in development of the game and that Porsér will be developing it. Persson revealed on his Tumblr blog on 5 August 2011 that he was being sued by a Swedish law firm representing Bethesda Softworks over the trademarked name of Scrolls, claiming that it conflicted with their The Elder Scrolls series of games. On 17 August 2011 Persson challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 tournament to decide the outcome of the naming dispute. On 27 September 2011 Persson confirmed that the lawsuit was going to court. ZeniMax Media, owner of Bethesda Softworks, announced the lawsuit's settlement in March 2012. The settlement allowed Mojang to continue using the Scrolls trademark. In 2018, Scrolls was made available free of charge and renamed to Caller's Bane. Cliffhorse is a humorous game programmed in two hours using the Unity game engine and free assets. The game took inspiration from Skyrim's physics engine, "the more embarrassing minimum-effort Greenlight games", Goat Simulator, and Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. The game was released to Microsoft Windows systems as an early access and honourware game on the first day of E3 2014, instructing users to donate Dogecoin to "buy" the game before downloading it. The game accumulated over 280,000 dogecoins. Following the end to his involvement with Minecraft, Persson began pre-production of an alternate reality space game set in the distant future in March 2012. On April Fools' Day Mojang launched a satirical website for Mars Effect (parody of Mass Effect), citing the lawsuit with Bethesda as an inspiration. However, the gameplay elements remained true and on 4 April, Mojang revealed 0x10c (pronounced "Ten to the C") as a space sandbox title. Persson officially halted game production in August 2013. However, C418, the composer of the game's soundtrack (as well as that of Minecraft), released an album of the work he had made for the game. In 2013, Persson made a free game called Shambles in the Unity game engine. Persson has also participated in several Ludum Dare 48-hour game making competitions. Personal life In 2011 Persson married Elin Zetterstrand, whom he had dated for four years before. Zetterstrand was a former moderator on the Minecraft forums. They had a daughter together, but by mid-2012, he began to see little of her. On 15 August 2012 he announced that he and his wife had filed for divorce. The divorce was finalised later that year. On 14 December 2011 Persson's father committed suicide with a handgun after drinking heavily. In an interview with The New Yorker, Persson said of his father: When I decided I wanted to quit my day job and work on my own games, he was the only person who supported my decision. He was proud of me and made sure I knew. When I added the monsters to Minecraft, he told me that the dark caves became too scary for him. But I think that was the only true criticism I ever heard from him. Persson later admitted that he himself suffered from depression and various highs and lows in his mood. Persson has criticised the stance of large game companies on piracy. He once stated that "piracy is not theft", viewing unauthorised downloads as potential future customers. Persson stated himself to be a member of the Pirate Party of Sweden in 2011. He is also a member of Mensa. He has donated to numerous charities, including Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Under his direction, Mojang spent a week developing Catacomb Snatch for the Humble Indie Bundle and raised US$458,248 for charity. He also donated $250,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2012. In 2011 he gave $3 million in dividends back to Mojang employees. According to Forbes, his net worth in 2023 was around $1.2 billion. In 2014 Persson was one of the biggest taxpayers in Sweden. Around 2014, he lived in a multi-level penthouse in Östermalm, Stockholm, an area he described as "where the rich people live". In December 2014 Persson purchased a home in Trousdale Estates, a neighbourhood in Beverly Hills, California, in the United States, for $70 million, a record sales price for Beverly Hills at the time. Persson reportedly outbid Beyoncé and Jay-Z for the property. Persson began receiving criticism for political and social opinions he expressed on social media as early as 2016. November 30, 2017 In 2017, he proposed a heterosexual pride holiday, and wrote that those who opposed the idea "deserve to be shot." After facing backlash, he deleted the tweets and rescinded his statements, writing, "So yeah, it's about pride of daring to express, not about pride of being who you are. I get it now." Later in the year, he wrote that feminism is a "social disease" and called the video game developer and feminist Zoë Quinn a "cunt", although he was generally critical of the GamerGate movement. He has described intersectional feminism as a "framework for bigotry" and the use of the word mansplaining as being sexist. Also in 2017, Persson tweeted that "It's okay to be white". Later that year, he stated that he believed in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. In 2019, he tweeted referencing QAnon, saying "Q is legit. Don't trust the media." Later in 2019, he tweeted in response to a pro-transgender internet meme that, "You are absolutely evil if you want to encourage delusion. What happened to not stigmatizing mental illness?" He then also promoted claims that people were fined for "using the wrong pronoun". However, after facing backlash, he tweeted a day afterwards that he had "no idea what [being trans is] like of course, but it's inspiring as hell when people open up and choose to actually be who they know themselves as. Not because it's a cool choice, because it's a big step. I gues [sic] that's actually cool nvm". Later that year, Microsoft removed two mentions of Persson's name in the "19w13a" snapshot of Minecraft and did not invite him to the 10-year anniversary celebration of the game. A spokesperson for Microsoft stated that his views "do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang". He is still mentioned in the End Poem ("a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus").[citation needed] Awards References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://www.fast.ai/posts/2018-09-24-ai-ethics-resources.html] | [TOKENS: 1376] |
AI Ethics Resources Rachel Thomas September 24, 2018 My newest Ask-A-Data-Scientist post was inspired by a computer science student who wrote in asking for advice on how to pursue a career in policy making related to the societal impacts of AI. I realized that there are many great resources out there, and I wanted to compile a list of links all in one place. You can find my previous Ask-A-Data-Scientist advice columns here. Everyone in tech should be concerned about the ethical implications of our work and actively engaging with such questions. The humanities and social sciences are incredibly relevant and important in addressing ethics questions. While tech ethics is not a new field (it has traditionally been studied within science, tech, & society (STS), or information science departments), many in the tech industry are now waking up to these questions, and there is a much wider interest in the topic than before. Working on AI ethics takes many forms, including: founding tech companies and building products in ethical ways; advocating and working for more just laws and policies; attempting to hold bad actors accountable; and research, writing, and teaching in the field. I have included many links to further resources in the rest of this post, as well as a few concrete suggestions. Don’t be overwhelmed by the length of these lists! This post is intended to be a resource that you can refer back to as needed: For an overview of some AI ethics issues, I encourage you to check out my recent PyBay keynote on the topic. Through a series of case studies, both negative and positive, I counter 4 misconceptions about tech that often lead to human harm, as well as offer some healthier principles: Build up your technical skills For anyone interested in the societal impact of AI, I recommend building up your technical knowledge of machine learning. Even if you do not plan on working as a programmer or deep learning practitioner, it is helpful to have a hands-on understanding of how this technology works and how it can be used. I encourage everyone interested in AI ethics and policy to learn Python and to take the Practical Deep Learning for Coders course (the only pre-requisite is one year of coding experience). Start a reading group Casey Fiesler, a professor in Information Science at CU Boulder, created a crowd-sourced spreadsheet of over 200 tech ethics courses and links to the syllabi for many of them. Even if your university does not offer a tech ethics course, I encourage you to start a club, reading group, or a student-led course on tech ethics, and these syllabi can be a helpful resource in creating your own. For those who are not college students, consider starting a tech ethics reading group at your workplace (that could perhaps meet for lunch once a week and discuss a different reading each week) or a tech ethics meetup in your city. 10 AI Ethics Experts to Follow Here are ten researchers whose work on AI ethics I admire and whom I recommend following. All of them have a number of great articles/talks/etc, although I’ve just linked to one each to get you started: Institutes and Fellowships The below institutes all offer a range of ways to get involved, including listening to their podcasts and videos (wherever you may be located in the world), attending in-person events, or applying for internships and fellowships to help fund your work in this area: Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center that seeks to bring people from around the globe together to tackle the biggest challenges presented by the Internet. Their programs include a Fellowship program, internships, and Assembly, a 4 month program for technologists, managers, and policymakers to confront emerging problems related to the ethics and governance of artificial intelligence. Data & Society is a non-profit research institute founded by danah boyd in NYC. They have a year-long fellowship program which is open to data scientists and engineers, lawyers and librarians, ethnographers and creators, historians and activists. AI Now Institute was founded by Kate Crawford and Meredith Whittaker, and is housed at NYU. They focus on four domains: rights and liberties, labor and automation, bias and inclusion, and safety and critical infrastructure. Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology is a think tank focused on privacy and surveillance law and policy—and the communities they affect. Their research includes The Perpetual Line-Up about the unregulated use of facial recognition technology by police in the USA. Data for Democracy is a non-profit organization of volunteers that has worked on a variety of projects, including several collaborations with ProPublica. Mozilla Media Fellowships fund new thinking on how to address emerging threats and challenges facing a healthy internet. Relevant projects have sought to address polarization, mass surveillance, and misinformation. Knight Foundation (journalism focus) funds programs, including AI ethics initiative, to support free expression and journalistic excellence in the digital age. They have supported a number of projects related to addressing disinformation. Eyebeam Residency (for artists) offers fellowships for those creating work which engages with technology and society through art. Previous projects include the open-source educational startup littleBits (2009) and the first Feminist Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon (2013). Aspen Tech Policy Hub Fellowship is a new program for tech experts to teach them the policy process. During the process, each fellow will create at least one practical policy output—- for instance, mock legislation, toolkits for policymakers, white papers, op-eds, or an app. Create your own If what you want doesn’t yet exist in the world, you may need to create your own group, organization, non-profit, or startup. Timnit Gebru, a computer vision researcher, is an excellent role model for this. Dr. Gebru describes her experience as a Black woman attending NIPS (a major AI conference) in 2016, I went to NIPS and someone was saying there were an estimated 8,500 people. I counted six black people. I was literally panicking. That’s the only way I can describe how I felt. I saw that this field was growing exponentially, hitting the mainstream; it’s affecting every part of society. Dr. Gebru went on to found Black in AI, a large and active network of Black AI researchers, which has led to new research collaborations, conference and speaking invitations for members, and was even a factor in Google AI deciding to open a research center in Accra, Ghana. Related fast.ai links At fast.ai, we frequently write and speak about ethics, as well as including the topic in our deep learning course. Here are a few posts you may be interested in: Here are some talks we’ve given on this topic: The ethical impact of technology is a huge and relevant area, and there is a lot of work to be done. |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Annual_D.I.C.E._Awards] | [TOKENS: 311] |
Contents 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards The 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards was the 16th edition of the D.I.C.E. Awards, an annual awards event that honored the best games in the video game industry during 2012. The awards were arranged by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), and were held at the Red Rock Casino, Resort & Spa in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 7, 2013 (2013-02-07). It was also held as part of the Academy's 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit, and was hosted by stand-up comedian Chris Hardwick. The award for "Web Based Game of the Year" was offered as a "Game of the Year" award. The "Social Networking Game of the Year" award would no longer be offered. Journey received the most nominations and won the most awards, including "Game of the Year". Sony Computer Entertainment was the most nominated and award-winning publisher, with Thatgamecompany as the top developer. Microsoft Studios had the most nominated games and Electronic Arts had the most award-winning games. Gabe Newell, founder of Valve Corporation and lead developer of the digital storefront Steam, was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Infocom co-founders Marc Blank and Dave Lebling both received the "Pioneer Award". Winners and Nominees Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡). External links References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_craton] | [TOKENS: 1202] |
Contents Congo Craton The Congo Craton, covered by the Palaeozoic-to-recent Congo Basin, is an ancient Precambrian craton that with four others (the Kaapvaal, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and West African cratons) makes up the modern continent of Africa. These cratons were formed between about 3.6 and 2.0 billion years ago and have been tectonically stable since that time. All of these cratons are bounded by younger fold belts formed between 2.0 billion and 300 million years ago. The Congo Craton occupies a large part of central southern Africa, extending from the Kasai region of the DRC into Sudan and Angola. It forms parts of the countries of Gabon, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic. A small portion extends into Zambia as well, where it is called the Bangweulu Block. Congo–São Francisco The Congo Craton and the São Francisco Craton are stable Archaean blocks that formed a coherent landmass until the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean during the break-up of Gondwana (c. 2000–130 Ma). They stabilised during the Transamazonian orogeny and Eburnean Orogeny and have been affected by a long series of orogens since resulting in similar sequences on both blocks. Congo–São Francisco experienced three large igneous province (LIP) events at 1380–1370 Ma, c. 1505 Ma, and c. 1110 Ma. The relative position of Congo–São Francisco within the supercontinent Nuna/Columbia can be reconstructed because these LIP events also affected other Precambrian continental blocks. Within Nuna the northern part of Siberia was located adjacent to western São Francisco. 1110 Ma dyke swarms in Angola are absent in Siberia but coincide with the Umkondo LIP on the Kalahari Craton and magmatic event in the Bundelkhand Craton in India, the Amazonian Craton in South America, and the Keweenawan Rift in Laurentia (although the latter was located far from the other continental blocks). A series of 1500 Ma dyke swarms also support the close relation between Congo–São Francisco and Siberia: Kuonamka in Siberia and Curaçá and Chapada Diamantina in São Francisco and Angola. These dyke swarms radiate from a mantle plume centre located in what is now north-eastern Siberia. Magmatic events in Congo (Kunene) and Siberia (Chieress) at 1384 Ma also corroborate the closeness of these two continents during at least 120 million years. It is possible that the 1110 Ma LIP in Congo–São Francisco, Amazonia, and India was part of a much larger event that also involved West Africa and Kalahari (with a possible but unlikely link to the 1075 Ma Warakurna LIP in Australia). However, while the palaeo-latitudes of India and Kalahari are well constrained, those of Amazonia and Congo–São Francisco are not, making any plate tectonic reconstruction speculative. At the time for the formation of the supercontinent Gondwana at c. 550 Ma the Congo Craton formed the already amalgamated central African landmass. The southern and eastern margins (modern coordinates) of this landmass was made of the Archaean Angola-Kasai block and Tanzanian Craton. These proto-Congo blocks were deformed in the Palaeoproterozoic Eburnean orogeny but later stabilised. Before the opening of the South Atlantic the São Francisco and Congo cratons were connected by a "cratonic" bridge, the Bahia–Gabon Bridge. The most recent orogenic event on this bridge occurred at 2 Ga, so the connection between São Francisco and Congo must have formed during the Palaeoproterozoic. South of this cratonic bridge the Araçuaí–West Congo orogen evolved in the Neoproterozoic in a sea basin made of oceanic crust, an embayment in the São Francisco–Congo continent. The West Congo Pan-African Belt includes major magmatic events at c. 1000 and 910 Ma. In the Early Neoproterozoic, the western edge of Congo Craton was the location for the initial rifting of Rodinia before its break-up. During the Neoproterozoic, Central Congo or Bas-Congo became a passive margin on which was deposited 4,000 m (13,000 ft) sediments. At the end of the Neoproterozoic, Bas-Congo was only affected by the Pan-African orogeny at 566 Ma to a limited extent protected by this passive margin and by the thickness of the craton. At 1000 Ma peralkaline magmatism initiated an early transtensional setting along the western edge of the Congo Craton. An LIP at c. 930–920 Ma was followed by felsic magmatism between c. 920–910 Ma which had a short emplacement interval and resulted in a 3,000–4,000 m (9,800–13,100 ft) thick sequence. Mafic-felsic magma sequences (6,000 m (20,000 ft) thick) on the western edge of the Congo Craton are similar to those of the Paraná and Deccan LIPs, but in the Congo Craton the magma source became shallower with time. There was no geodynamic activity along the western Congo margin during the Mesoproterozoic. See also References Africa Antarctica Asia Australia Europe North America South America Afro-Eurasia Americas Eurasia Oceania |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson#cite_ref-35] | [TOKENS: 3525] |
Contents Markus Persson Markus Alexej Persson (/ˈpɪərsən/ ⓘ PEER-sən, Swedish: [ˈmǎrːkɵs ˈpæ̌ːʂɔn] ⓘ; born 1 June 1979), known by the pseudonym Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is the creator of Minecraft, the best-selling video game in history. He founded the video game development company Mojang Studios in 2009. Persson began developing video games at an early age. His commercial success began after he published an early version of Minecraft in 2009. Prior to the game's official retail release in 2011, it had sold over four million copies. After this point Persson stood down as the lead designer and transferred his creative authority to Jens Bergensten. In September 2014 Persson announced his intention to leave Mojang, and in November of that year the company was sold to Microsoft reportedly for US$2.5 billion, which made him a billionaire. Since 2016 several of Persson's posts on Twitter regarding feminism, race, and transgender rights have caused public controversies. He has been described as "an increasingly polarizing figure, tweeting offensive statements regarding race, the LGBTQ community, gender, and other topics." In an effort to distance itself from Persson, Microsoft removed mentions of his name from Minecraft (excluding one instance in the game's end credits) and did not invite him to the game's tenth anniversary celebration. In 2015 he co-founded a separate game studio called Rubberbrain, which was relaunched in 2024 as Bitshift Entertainment. Early life Markus Alexej Persson was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to a Finnish mother, Ritva, and a Swedish father, Birger, on 1 June 1979. He has one sister. He grew up in Edsbyn until he was seven years old, when his family moved back to Stockholm. In Edsbyn, Persson's father worked for the railroad, and his mother was a nurse. He spent much time outdoors in Edsbyn, exploring the woods with his friends. When Persson was about seven years old, his parents divorced, and he and his sister lived with their mother. His father moved to a cabin in the countryside. Persson said in an interview that they experienced food insecurity around once a month. Persson lost contact with his father for several years after the divorce. According to Persson, his father suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and medication abuse, and went to jail for robberies. While his father had somewhat recovered during Persson's early life, his father relapsed, contributing to the divorce. His sister also experimented with drugs and ran away from home. He had gained interest in video games at an early age. His father was "a really big nerd", who built his own modem and taught Persson to use the family's Commodore 128. On it, Persson played bootleg games and loaded in various type-in programs from computer magazines with the help of his sister. The first game he purchased with his own money was The Bard's Tale. He began programming on his father's Commodore 128 home computer at the age of seven. He produced his first game at the age of eight, a text-based adventure game. By 1994 Persson knew he wanted to become a video game developer, but his teachers advised him to study graphic design, which he did from ages 15 to 18. Persson, although introverted, was well-liked by his peers, but after entering secondary school was a "loner" and reportedly had only one friend. He spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. He managed to reverse-engineer the Doom engine, which he continued to take great pride in as of 2014[update]. He never finished high school, but was reportedly a good student. Career Persson started his career working as a web designer. He later found employment at Game Federation, where he met Rolf Jansson. The pair worked in their spare time to build the 2006 video game Wurm Online. The game was released through a new entity, "Mojang Specifications AB". Persson left the project in late 2007. As Persson wanted to reuse the name "Mojang", Jansson agreed to rename the company to Onetoofree AB. Between 2004 and 2009 Persson worked as a game developer for Midasplayer (later known as King). There, he worked as a programmer, mostly building browser games made in Flash. He later worked as a programmer for jAlbum. Prior to creating Minecraft, Persson developed multiple, small games. He also entered a number of game design competitions and participated in discussions on the TIGSource forums, a web forum for independent game developers. One of Persson's more notable personal projects was called RubyDung, an isometric three-dimensional base-building game like RollerCoaster Tycoon and Dwarf Fortress. While working on RubyDung, Persson experimented with a first-person view mode similar to that found in Dungeon Keeper. However, he felt the graphics were too pixelated and omitted this mode. In 2009 Persson found inspiration in Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game. Infiniminer heavily influenced his future work on RubyDung, and was behind Persson's reasoning for returning the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals to the game. RubyDung is the earliest known Minecraft prototype created by Persson. On 17 May 2009 Persson released the original edition (later called "Classic version") of Minecraft on the TIGSource forums. He regularly updated the game based on feedback from TIGSource users. Persson released several new versions of Minecraft throughout 2009 and 2010, going through several phases of development including Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev. On 30 June 2010 Persson released the game's Alpha version. While working on the pre-Alpha version of Minecraft, Persson continued working at jAlbum. In 2010, after the release and subsequent success of Minecraft's Alpha version, Persson moved from a full-time role to a part-time role at jAlbum. He left jAlbum later that same year. In September 2010 Persson travelled to Valve Corporation's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, United States, where he took part in a programming exercise and met Gabe Newell. Persson was subsequently offered a job at Valve, which he turned down in order to continue work on Minecraft. On 20 December 2010 Minecraft moved into its beta phase and began expanding to other platforms, including mobile. In January 2011 Minecraft reached one million registered accounts. Six months afterwards, it reached ten million. The game has sold over four million copies by 7 November 2011. Mojang held the first Minecon from 18 to 19 November 2011 to celebrate its full release, and subsequently made it an annual event. Following this, on 11 December 2011, Persson transferred creative control of Minecraft to Jens Bergensten and began working on another game title, 0x10c, although he reportedly abandoned the project around 2013. In 2013 Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million and profits of $129 million. Persson has stated that, due to the intense media attention and public pressure, he became exhausted with running Minecraft and Mojang. In a September 2014 blog post he shared his realization that he "didn't have the connection to my fans I thought I had", that he had "become a symbol", and that he did not wish to be responsible for Mojang's increasingly large operation. In June 2014 Persson tweeted "Anyone want to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life? Getting hate for trying to do the right thing is not my gig", reportedly partly as a joke. Persson controlled a 71% stake in Mojang at the time. The offer attracted significant interest from Activision Blizzard, EA, and Microsoft. Forbes later reported that Microsoft wanted to purchase the game as a "tax dodge" to turn their taxable excess liquid cash into other assets. In September 2014 Microsoft agreed to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion, making Persson a billionaire. He then left the company after the deal was finalised in November. Since leaving Mojang, Persson has worked on several small projects. On 23 June 2014 he founded a company with Porsér called Rubberbrain AB; the company had no games by 2021, despite spending SEK 60 million. The company was relaunched as Bitshift Entertainment, LLC on 28 March 2024. Persson expressed interest in creating a new video game studio in 2020, and in developing virtual reality games. He has also since created a series of narrative-driven immersive events called ".party()", which uses extensive visual effects and has been hosted in multiple cities. At the beginning of 2025 Persson decided to create a spiritual successor to Minecraft, referred to as "Minecraft 2", in response to the results of a poll on X. However, after speaking to his team, he shortly went against this in favour of developing the other choice on his Twitter poll, a roguelike titled Levers and Chests. Games Persson's most popular creation is the survival sandbox game Minecraft, which was first publicly available on 17 May 2009 and fully released on 18 November 2011. Persson left his job as a game developer to work on Minecraft full-time until completion. In early 2011, Mojang AB sold the one millionth copy of the game, several months later their second, and several more their third. Mojang hired several new staff members for the Minecraft team, while Persson passed the lead developer role to Jens Bergensten. He stopped working on Minecraft after a deal with Microsoft to sell Mojang for $2.5 billion. This brought his net worth to US$1.5 billion. Persson and Jakob Porsér came up with the idea for Scrolls including elements from board games and collectible card games. Persson noted that he will not be actively involved in development of the game and that Porsér will be developing it. Persson revealed on his Tumblr blog on 5 August 2011 that he was being sued by a Swedish law firm representing Bethesda Softworks over the trademarked name of Scrolls, claiming that it conflicted with their The Elder Scrolls series of games. On 17 August 2011 Persson challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 tournament to decide the outcome of the naming dispute. On 27 September 2011 Persson confirmed that the lawsuit was going to court. ZeniMax Media, owner of Bethesda Softworks, announced the lawsuit's settlement in March 2012. The settlement allowed Mojang to continue using the Scrolls trademark. In 2018, Scrolls was made available free of charge and renamed to Caller's Bane. Cliffhorse is a humorous game programmed in two hours using the Unity game engine and free assets. The game took inspiration from Skyrim's physics engine, "the more embarrassing minimum-effort Greenlight games", Goat Simulator, and Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. The game was released to Microsoft Windows systems as an early access and honourware game on the first day of E3 2014, instructing users to donate Dogecoin to "buy" the game before downloading it. The game accumulated over 280,000 dogecoins. Following the end to his involvement with Minecraft, Persson began pre-production of an alternate reality space game set in the distant future in March 2012. On April Fools' Day Mojang launched a satirical website for Mars Effect (parody of Mass Effect), citing the lawsuit with Bethesda as an inspiration. However, the gameplay elements remained true and on 4 April, Mojang revealed 0x10c (pronounced "Ten to the C") as a space sandbox title. Persson officially halted game production in August 2013. However, C418, the composer of the game's soundtrack (as well as that of Minecraft), released an album of the work he had made for the game. In 2013, Persson made a free game called Shambles in the Unity game engine. Persson has also participated in several Ludum Dare 48-hour game making competitions. Personal life In 2011 Persson married Elin Zetterstrand, whom he had dated for four years before. Zetterstrand was a former moderator on the Minecraft forums. They had a daughter together, but by mid-2012, he began to see little of her. On 15 August 2012 he announced that he and his wife had filed for divorce. The divorce was finalised later that year. On 14 December 2011 Persson's father committed suicide with a handgun after drinking heavily. In an interview with The New Yorker, Persson said of his father: When I decided I wanted to quit my day job and work on my own games, he was the only person who supported my decision. He was proud of me and made sure I knew. When I added the monsters to Minecraft, he told me that the dark caves became too scary for him. But I think that was the only true criticism I ever heard from him. Persson later admitted that he himself suffered from depression and various highs and lows in his mood. Persson has criticised the stance of large game companies on piracy. He once stated that "piracy is not theft", viewing unauthorised downloads as potential future customers. Persson stated himself to be a member of the Pirate Party of Sweden in 2011. He is also a member of Mensa. He has donated to numerous charities, including Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Under his direction, Mojang spent a week developing Catacomb Snatch for the Humble Indie Bundle and raised US$458,248 for charity. He also donated $250,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2012. In 2011 he gave $3 million in dividends back to Mojang employees. According to Forbes, his net worth in 2023 was around $1.2 billion. In 2014 Persson was one of the biggest taxpayers in Sweden. Around 2014, he lived in a multi-level penthouse in Östermalm, Stockholm, an area he described as "where the rich people live". In December 2014 Persson purchased a home in Trousdale Estates, a neighbourhood in Beverly Hills, California, in the United States, for $70 million, a record sales price for Beverly Hills at the time. Persson reportedly outbid Beyoncé and Jay-Z for the property. Persson began receiving criticism for political and social opinions he expressed on social media as early as 2016. November 30, 2017 In 2017, he proposed a heterosexual pride holiday, and wrote that those who opposed the idea "deserve to be shot." After facing backlash, he deleted the tweets and rescinded his statements, writing, "So yeah, it's about pride of daring to express, not about pride of being who you are. I get it now." Later in the year, he wrote that feminism is a "social disease" and called the video game developer and feminist Zoë Quinn a "cunt", although he was generally critical of the GamerGate movement. He has described intersectional feminism as a "framework for bigotry" and the use of the word mansplaining as being sexist. Also in 2017, Persson tweeted that "It's okay to be white". Later that year, he stated that he believed in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. In 2019, he tweeted referencing QAnon, saying "Q is legit. Don't trust the media." Later in 2019, he tweeted in response to a pro-transgender internet meme that, "You are absolutely evil if you want to encourage delusion. What happened to not stigmatizing mental illness?" He then also promoted claims that people were fined for "using the wrong pronoun". However, after facing backlash, he tweeted a day afterwards that he had "no idea what [being trans is] like of course, but it's inspiring as hell when people open up and choose to actually be who they know themselves as. Not because it's a cool choice, because it's a big step. I gues [sic] that's actually cool nvm". Later that year, Microsoft removed two mentions of Persson's name in the "19w13a" snapshot of Minecraft and did not invite him to the 10-year anniversary celebration of the game. A spokesperson for Microsoft stated that his views "do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang". He is still mentioned in the End Poem ("a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus").[citation needed] Awards References External links |
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Contents Minecraft Minecraft is a sandbox game developed and published by Mojang Studios. Following its initial public alpha release in 2009, it was formally released in 2011 for personal computers. The game has since been ported to numerous platforms, including mobile devices and various video game consoles. In Minecraft, players explore a procedurally generated world with virtually infinite terrain made up of voxels (cubes). They can discover and extract raw materials, craft tools and items, build structures, fight hostile mobs, and cooperate with or compete against other players in multiplayer. The game's large community offers a wide variety of user-generated content, such as modifications, servers, player skins, texture packs, and custom maps, which add new game mechanics and possibilities. Originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java programming language, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten was handed control over the game's development following its full release. In 2014, Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion; Xbox Game Studios hold the publishing rights for the Bedrock Edition, the unified cross-platform version which evolved from the Pocket Edition codebase[i] and replaced the legacy console versions. Bedrock is updated concurrently with Mojang's original Java Edition, although with numerous, generally small, differences. Minecraft is the best-selling video game in history with over 350 million copies sold. It has received critical acclaim, winning several awards and being cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. Social media, parodies, adaptations, merchandise, and the annual Minecon conventions have played prominent roles in popularizing it. The wider Minecraft franchise includes several spin-off games, such as Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft Dungeons, and Minecraft Legends. A film adaptation, titled A Minecraft Movie, was released in 2025 and became the second highest-grossing video game film of all time. Gameplay Minecraft is a 3D sandbox video game that has no required goals to accomplish, giving players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. The game features an optional achievement system. Gameplay is in the first-person perspective by default, but players have the option of third-person perspectives. The game world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes, referred to as blocks—representing various materials, such as dirt, stone, ores, tree trunks, water, and lava. The core gameplay revolves around picking up and placing these objects. These blocks are arranged in a voxel grid, while players can move freely around the world. Players can break, or mine, blocks and then place them elsewhere, enabling them to build things. Very few blocks are affected by gravity, instead maintaining their voxel position in the air. Players can also craft a wide variety of items, such as armor, which mitigates damage from attacks; weapons (such as swords or bows and arrows), which allow monsters and animals to be killed more easily; and tools (such as pickaxes or shovels), which break certain types of blocks more quickly. Some items have multiple tiers depending on the material used to craft them, with higher-tier items being more effective and durable. They may also freely craft helpful blocks—such as furnaces which can cook food and smelt ores, and torches that produce light—or exchange items with villagers (NPC) through trading emeralds for different goods and vice versa. The game has an inventory system, allowing players to carry a limited number of items. The in-game time system follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting for 20 real-time minutes. The game also contains a material called redstone, which can be used to make primitive mechanical devices, electrical circuits, and logic gates, allowing for the construction of many complex systems. New players are given a randomly selected default character skin out of nine possibilities, including Steve or Alex, but are able to create and upload their own skins. Players encounter various mobs (short for mobile entities) including animals, villagers, and hostile creatures. Passive mobs, such as cows, pigs, and chickens, spawn during the daytime and can be hunted for food and crafting materials, while hostile mobs—including large spiders, witches, skeletons, and zombies—spawn during nighttime or in dark places such as caves. Some hostile mobs, such as zombies and skeletons, burn under the sun if they have no headgear and are not standing in water. Other creatures unique to Minecraft include the creeper (an exploding creature that sneaks up on the player) and the enderman (a creature with the ability to teleport as well as pick up and place blocks). There are also variants of mobs that spawn in different conditions; for example, zombies have husk and drowned variants that spawn in deserts and oceans, respectively. The Minecraft environment is procedurally generated as players explore it using a map seed that is randomly chosen at the time of world creation (or manually specified by the player). Divided into biomes representing different environments with unique resources and structures, worlds are designed to be effectively infinite in traditional gameplay, though technical limits on the player have existed throughout development, both intentionally and not. Implementation of horizontally infinite generation initially resulted in a glitch termed the "Far Lands" at over 12 million blocks away from the world center, where terrain generated as wall-like, fissured patterns. The Far Lands and associated glitches were considered the effective edge of the world until they were resolved, with the current horizontal limit instead being a special impassable barrier called the world border, located 30 million blocks away. Vertical space is comparatively limited, with an unbreakable bedrock layer at the bottom and a building limit several hundred blocks into the sky. Minecraft features three independent dimensions accessible through portals and providing alternate game environments. The Overworld is the starting dimension and represents the real world, with a terrestrial surface setting including plains, mountains, forests, oceans, caves, and small sources of lava. The Nether is a hell-like underworld dimension accessed via an obsidian portal and composed mainly of lava. Mobs that populate the Nether include shrieking, fireball-shooting ghasts, alongside anthropomorphic pigs called piglins and their zombified counterparts. Piglins in particular have a bartering system, where players can give them gold ingots and receive items in return. Structures known as Nether Fortresses generate in the Nether, containing mobs such as wither skeletons and blazes, which can drop blaze rods needed to access the End dimension. The player can also choose to build an optional boss mob known as the Wither, using skulls obtained from wither skeletons and soul sand. The End can be reached through an end portal, consisting of twelve end portal frames. End portals are found in underground structures in the Overworld known as strongholds. To find strongholds, players must craft eyes of ender using an ender pearl and blaze powder. Eyes of ender can then be thrown, traveling in the direction of the stronghold. Once the player reaches the stronghold, they can place eyes of ender into each portal frame to activate the end portal. The dimension consists of islands floating in a dark, bottomless void. A boss enemy called the Ender Dragon guards the largest, central island. Killing the dragon opens access to an exit portal, which, when entered, cues the game's ending credits and the End Poem, a roughly 1,500-word work written by Irish novelist Julian Gough, which takes about nine minutes to scroll past, is the game's only narrative text, and the only text of significant length directed at the player.: 10–12 At the conclusion of the credits, the player is teleported back to their respawn point and may continue the game indefinitely. In Survival mode, players have to gather natural resources such as wood and stone found in the environment in order to craft certain blocks and items. Depending on the difficulty, monsters spawn in darker areas outside a certain radius of the character, requiring players to build a shelter in order to survive at night. The mode also has a health bar which is depleted by attacks from mobs, falls, drowning, falling into lava, suffocation, starvation, and other events. Players also have a hunger bar, which must be periodically refilled by eating food in-game unless the player is playing on peaceful difficulty. If the hunger bar is empty, the player starves. Health replenishes when players have a full hunger bar or continuously on peaceful. Upon losing all health, players die. The items in the players' inventories are dropped unless the game is reconfigured not to do so. Players then re-spawn at their spawn point, which by default is where players first spawn in the game and can be changed by sleeping in a bed or using a respawn anchor. Dropped items can be recovered if players can reach them before they despawn after 5 minutes. Players may acquire experience points (commonly referred to as "xp" or "exp") by killing mobs and other players, mining, smelting ores, animal breeding, and cooking food. Experience can then be spent on enchanting tools, armor and weapons. Enchanted items are generally more powerful, last longer, or have other special effects. The game features two more game modes based on Survival, known as Hardcore mode and Adventure mode. Hardcore mode plays identically to Survival mode, but with the game's difficulty setting locked to "Hard" and with permadeath, forcing them to delete the world or explore it as a spectator after dying. Adventure mode was added to the game in a post-launch update, and prevents the player from directly modifying the game's world. It was designed primarily for use in custom maps, allowing map designers to let players experience it as intended. In Creative mode, players have access to an infinite number of all resources and items in the game through the inventory menu and can place or mine them instantly. Players can toggle the ability to fly freely around the game world at will, and their characters usually do not take any damage nor are affected by hunger. The game mode helps players focus on building and creating projects of any size without disturbance. Multiplayer in Minecraft enables multiple players to interact and communicate with each other on a single world. It is available through direct game-to-game multiplayer, local area network (LAN) play, local split screen (console-only), and servers (player-hosted and business-hosted). Players can run their own server by making a realm, using a host provider, hosting one themselves or connect directly to another player's game via Xbox Live, PlayStation Network or Nintendo Switch Online. Single-player worlds have LAN support, allowing players to join a world on locally interconnected computers without a server setup. Minecraft multiplayer servers are guided by server operators, who have access to server commands such as setting the time of day and teleporting players. Operators can also set up restrictions concerning which usernames or IP addresses are allowed or disallowed to enter the server. Multiplayer servers have a wide range of activities, with some servers having their own unique rules and customs. The largest and most popular server is Hypixel, which has been visited by over 14 million unique players. Player versus player combat (PvP) can be enabled to allow fighting between players. In 2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service intended to enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and safely without having to set up their own. Unlike a standard server, only invited players can join Realms servers, and these servers do not use server addresses. Minecraft: Java Edition Realms server owners can invite up to twenty people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at a time. Minecraft Realms server owners can invite up to 3,000 people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at one time. The Minecraft: Java Edition Realms servers do not support user-made plugins, but players can play custom Minecraft maps. Minecraft Bedrock Realms servers support user-made add-ons, resource packs, behavior packs, and custom Minecraft maps. At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016, support for cross-platform play between Windows 10, iOS, and Android platforms was added through Realms starting in June 2016, with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch support to come later in 2017, and support for virtual reality devices. On 31 July 2017, Mojang released the beta version of the update allowing cross-platform play. Nintendo Switch support for Realms was released in July 2018. The modding community consists of fans, users and third-party programmers. Using a variety of application program interfaces that have arisen over time, they have produced a wide variety of downloadable content for Minecraft, such as modifications, texture packs and custom maps. Modifications of the Minecraft code, called mods, add a variety of gameplay changes, ranging from new blocks, items, and mobs to entire arrays of mechanisms. The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as mini-maps, waypoints, and durability counters, to ones that add to the game elements from other video games and media. While a variety of mod frameworks were independently developed by reverse engineering the code, Mojang has also enhanced vanilla Minecraft with official frameworks for modification, allowing the production of community-created resource packs, which alter certain game elements including textures and sounds. Players can also create their own "maps" (custom world save files) that often contain specific rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to play. Mojang added an adventure mode in August 2012 and "command blocks" in October 2012, which were created specially for custom maps in Java Edition. Data packs, introduced in version 1.13 of the Java Edition, allow further customization, including the ability to add new achievements, dimensions, functions, loot tables, predicates, recipes, structures, tags, and world generation. The Xbox 360 Edition supported downloadable content, which was available to purchase via the Xbox Games Store; these content packs usually contained additional character skins. It later received support for texture packs in its twelfth title update while introducing "mash-up packs", which combined texture packs with skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface. The first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the Xbox 360 Edition was released on 4 September 2013, and was themed after the Mass Effect franchise. Unlike Java Edition, however, the Xbox 360 Edition did not support player-made mods or custom maps. A cross-promotional resource pack based on the Super Mario franchise by Nintendo was released exclusively for the Wii U Edition worldwide on 17 May 2016, and later bundled free with the Nintendo Switch Edition at launch. Another based on Fallout was released on consoles that December, and for Windows and Mobile in April 2017. In April 2018, malware was discovered in several downloadable user-made Minecraft skins for use with the Java Edition of the game. Avast stated that nearly 50,000 accounts were infected, and when activated, the malware would attempt to reformat the user's hard drive. Mojang promptly patched the issue, and released a statement stating that "the code would not be run or read by the game itself", and would run only when the image containing the skin itself was opened. In June 2017, Mojang released the "1.1 Discovery Update" to the Pocket Edition of the game, which later became the Bedrock Edition. The update introduced the "Marketplace", a catalogue of purchasable user-generated content intended to give Minecraft creators "another way to make a living from the game". Various skins, maps, texture packs and add-ons from different creators can be bought with "Minecoins", a digital currency that is purchased with real money. Additionally, users can access specific content with a subscription service titled "Marketplace Pass". Alongside content from independent creators, the Marketplace also houses items published by Mojang and Microsoft themselves, as well as official collaborations between Minecraft and other intellectual properties. By 2022, the Marketplace had over 1.7 billion content downloads, generating over $500 million in revenue. Development Before creating Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson was a game developer at King, where he worked until March 2009. At King, he primarily developed browser games and learned several programming languages. During his free time, he prototyped his own games, often drawing inspiration from other titles, and was an active participant on the TIGSource forums for independent developers. One such project was "RubyDung", a base-building game inspired by Dwarf Fortress, but with an isometric, three-dimensional perspective similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon. Among the features in RubyDung that he explored was a first-person view similar to Dungeon Keeper, though he ultimately discarded this idea, feeling the graphics were too pixelated at the time. Around March 2009, Persson left King and joined jAlbum, while continuing to work on his prototypes. Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game first released in April 2009, inspired Persson's vision for RubyDung's future direction. Infiniminer heavily influenced the visual style of gameplay, including bringing back the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals. However, unlike Infiniminer, Persson wanted Minecraft to have RPG elements. The first public alpha build of Minecraft was released on 17 May 2009 on TIGSource. Over the years, Persson regularly released test builds that added new features, including tools, mobs, and entire new dimensions. In 2011, partly due to the game's rising popularity, Persson decided to release a full 1.0 version—a second part of the "Adventure Update"—on 18 November 2011. Shortly after, Persson stepped down from development, handing the project's lead to Jens "Jeb" Bergensten. On 15 September 2014, Microsoft, the developer behind the Microsoft Windows operating system and Xbox video game console, announced a $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang, which included the Minecraft intellectual property. Persson had suggested the deal on Twitter, asking a corporation to buy his stake in the game after receiving criticism for enforcing terms in the game's end-user license agreement (EULA), which had been in place for the past three years. According to Persson, Mojang CEO Carl Manneh received a call from a Microsoft executive shortly after the tweet, asking if Persson was serious about a deal. Mojang was also approached by other companies including Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts. The deal with Microsoft was arbitrated on 6 November 2014 and led to Persson becoming one of Forbes' "World's Billionaires". After 2014, Minecraft's primary versions received usually annual major updates—free to players who have purchased the game— each primarily centered around a specific theme. For instance, version 1.13, the Update Aquatic, focused on ocean-related features, while version 1.16, the Nether Update, introduced significant changes to the Nether dimension. However, in late 2024, Mojang announced a shift in their update strategy; rather than releasing large updates annually, they opted for a more frequent release schedule with smaller, incremental updates, stating, "We know that you want new Minecraft content more often." The Bedrock Edition has also received regular updates, now matching the themes of the Java Edition updates. Other versions of the game, such as various console editions and the Pocket Edition, were either merged into Bedrock or discontinued and have not received further updates. On 7 May 2019, coinciding with Minecraft's 10th anniversary, a JavaScript recreation of an old 2009 Java Edition build named Minecraft Classic was made available to play online for free. On 16 April 2020, a Bedrock Edition-exclusive beta version of Minecraft, called Minecraft RTX, was released by Nvidia. It introduced physically-based rendering, real-time path tracing, and DLSS for RTX-enabled GPUs. The public release was made available on 8 December 2020. Path tracing can only be enabled in supported worlds, which can be downloaded for free via the in-game Minecraft Marketplace, with a texture pack from Nvidia's website, or with compatible third-party texture packs. It cannot be enabled by default with any texture pack on any world. Initially, Minecraft RTX was affected by many bugs, display errors, and instability issues. On 22 March 2025, a new visual mode called Vibrant Visuals, an optional graphical overhaul similar to Minecraft RTX, was announced. It promises modern rendering features—such as dynamic shadows, screen space reflections, volumetric fog, and bloom—without the need of RTX-capable hardware. Vibrant Visuals was released as a part of the Chase the Skies update on 17 June 2025 for Bedrock Edition and is planned to release on Java Edition at a later date. Development began for the original edition of Minecraft—then known as Cave Game, and now known as the Java Edition—in May 2009,[k] and ended on 13 May, when Persson released a test video on YouTube of an early version of the game, dubbed the "Cave game tech test" or the "Cave game tech demo". The game was named Minecraft: Order of the Stone the next day, after a suggestion made by a player. "Order of the Stone" came from the webcomic The Order of the Stick, and "Minecraft" was chosen "because it's a good name". The title was later shortened to just Minecraft, omitting the subtitle. Persson completed the game's base programming over a weekend in May 2009, and private testing began on TigIRC on 16 May. The first public release followed on 17 May 2009 as a developmental version shared on the TIGSource forums. Based on feedback from forum users, Persson continued updating the game. This initial public build later became known as Classic. Further developmental phases—dubbed Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev—were released throughout 2009 and 2010. The first major update, known as Alpha, was released on 30 June 2010. At the time, Persson was still working a day job at jAlbum but later resigned to focus on Minecraft full-time as sales of the alpha version surged. Updates were distributed automatically, introducing new blocks, items, mobs, and changes to game mechanics such as water flow. With revenue generated from the game, Persson founded Mojang, a video game studio, alongside former colleagues Jakob Porser and Carl Manneh. On 11 December 2010, Persson announced that Minecraft would enter its beta phase on 20 December. He assured players that bug fixes and all pre-release updates would remain free. As development progressed, Mojang expanded, hiring additional employees to work on the project. The game officially exited beta and launched in full on 18 November 2011. On 1 December 2011, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took full creative control over Minecraft, replacing Persson as lead designer. On 28 February 2012, Mojang announced the hiring of the developers behind Bukkit, a popular developer API for Minecraft servers, to improve Minecraft's support of server modifications. This move included Mojang taking apparent ownership of the CraftBukkit server mod, though this apparent acquisition later became controversial, and its legitimacy was questioned due to CraftBukkit's open-source nature and licensing under the GNU General Public License and Lesser General Public License. In August 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released as an early alpha for the Xperia Play via the Android Market, later expanding to other Android devices on 8 October 2011. The iOS version followed on 17 November 2011. A port was made available for Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft acquired Mojang. Unlike Java Edition, Pocket Edition initially focused on Minecraft's creative building and basic survival elements but lacked many features of the PC version. Bergensten confirmed on Twitter that the Pocket Edition was written in C++ rather than Java, as iOS does not support Java. On 10 December 2014, a port of Pocket Edition was released for Windows Phone 8.1. In July 2015, a port of the Pocket Edition to Windows 10 was released as the Windows 10 Edition, with full crossplay to other Pocket versions. In January 2017, Microsoft announced that it would no longer maintain the Windows Phone versions of Pocket Edition. On 20 September 2017, with the "Better Together Update", the Pocket Edition was ported to the Xbox One, and was renamed to the Bedrock Edition. The console versions of Minecraft debuted with the Xbox 360 edition, developed by 4J Studios and released on 9 May 2012. Announced as part of the Xbox Live Arcade NEXT promotion, this version introduced a redesigned crafting system, a new control interface, in-game tutorials, split-screen multiplayer, and online play via Xbox Live. Unlike the PC version, its worlds were finite, bordered by invisible walls. Initially, the Xbox 360 version resembled outdated PC versions but received updates to bring it closer to Java Edition before eventually being discontinued. The Xbox One version launched on 5 September 2014, featuring larger worlds and support for more players. Minecraft expanded to PlayStation platforms with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 editions released on 17 December 2013 and 4 September 2014, respectively. Originally planned as a PS4 launch title, it was delayed before its eventual release. A PlayStation Vita version followed in October 2014. Like the Xbox versions, the PlayStation editions were developed by 4J Studios. Nintendo platforms received Minecraft: Wii U Edition on 17 December 2015, with a physical release in North America on 17 June 2016 and in Europe on 30 June. The Nintendo Switch version launched via the eShop on 11 May 2017. During a Nintendo Direct presentation on 13 September 2017, Nintendo announced that Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition, based on the Pocket Edition, would be available for download immediately after the livestream, and a physical copy available on a later date. The game is compatible only with the New Nintendo 3DS or New Nintendo 2DS XL systems and does not work with the original 3DS or 2DS systems. On 20 September 2017, the Better Together Update introduced Bedrock Edition across Xbox One, Windows 10, VR, and mobile platforms, enabling cross-play between these versions. Bedrock Edition later expanded to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, with the latter receiving the update in December 2019, allowing cross-platform play for users with a free Xbox Live account. The Bedrock Edition released a native version for PlayStation 5 on 22 October 2024, while the Xbox Series X/S version launched on 17 June 2025. On 18 December 2018, the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and Wii U versions of Minecraft received their final update and would later become known as "Legacy Console Editions". On 15 January 2019, the New Nintendo 3DS version of Minecraft received its final update, effectively becoming discontinued as well. An educational version of Minecraft, designed for use in schools, launched on 1 November 2016. It is available on Android, ChromeOS, iPadOS, iOS, MacOS, and Windows. On 20 August 2018, Mojang announced that it would bring Education Edition to iPadOS in Autumn 2018. It was released to the App Store on 6 September 2018. On 27 March 2019, it was announced that it would be operated by JD.com in China. On 26 June 2020, a public beta for the Education Edition was made available to Google Play Store compatible Chromebooks. The full game was released to the Google Play Store for Chromebooks on 7 August 2020. On 20 May 2016, China Edition (also known as My World) was announced as a localized edition for China, where it was released under a licensing agreement between NetEase and Mojang. The PC edition was released for public testing on 8 August 2017. The iOS version was released on 15 September 2017, and the Android version was released on 12 October 2017. The PC edition is based on the original Java Edition, while the iOS and Android mobile versions are based on the Bedrock Edition. The edition is free-to-play and had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. This version of Bedrock Edition is exclusive to Microsoft's Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems. The beta release for Windows 10 launched on the Windows Store on 29 July 2015. After nearly a year and a half in beta, Microsoft fully released the version on 19 December 2016. Called the "Ender Update", this release implemented new features to this version of Minecraft like world templates and add-on packs. On 7 June 2022, the Java and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft were merged into a single bundle for purchase on Windows; those who owned one version would automatically gain access to the other version. Both game versions would otherwise remain separate. Around 2011, prior to Minecraft's full release, Mojang collaborated with The Lego Group to create a Lego brick-based Minecraft game called Brickcraft. This would have modified the base Minecraft game to use Lego bricks, which meant adapting the basic 1×1 block to account for larger pieces typically used in Lego sets. Persson worked on an early version called "Project Rex Kwon Do", named after the character of the same name from the film Napoleon Dynamite. Although Lego approved the project and Mojang assigned two developers for six months, it was canceled due to the Lego Group's demands, according to Mojang's Daniel Kaplan. Lego considered buying Mojang to complete the game, but when Microsoft offered over $2 billion for the company, Lego stepped back, unsure of Minecraft's potential. On 26 June 2025, a build of Brickcraft dated 28 June 2012 was published on a community archive website Omniarchive. Initially, Markus Persson planned to support the Oculus Rift with a Minecraft port. However, after Facebook acquired Oculus in 2013, he abruptly canceled the plans, stating, "Facebook creeps me out." In 2016, a community-made mod, Minecraft VR, added VR support for Java Edition, followed by Vivecraft for HTC Vive. Later that year, Microsoft introduced official Oculus Rift support for Windows 10 Edition, leading to the discontinuation of the Minecraft VR mod due to trademark complaints. Vivecraft was endorsed by Minecraft VR contributors for its Rift support. Also available is a Gear VR version, titled Minecraft: Gear VR Edition. Windows Mixed Reality support was added in 2017. On 7 September 2020, Mojang Studios announced that the PlayStation 4 Bedrock version would receive PlayStation VR support later that month. In September 2024, the Minecraft team announced they would no longer support PlayStation VR, which received its final update in March 2025. Music and sound design Minecraft's music and sound effects were produced by German musician Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418. To create the sound effects for the game, Rosenfeld made extensive use of Foley techniques. On learning the processes for the game, he remarked, "Foley's an interesting thing, and I had to learn its subtleties. Early on, I wasn't that knowledgeable about it. It's a whole trial-and-error process. You just make a sound and eventually you go, 'Oh my God, that's it! Get the microphone!' There's no set way of doing anything at all." He reminisced on creating the in-game sound for grass blocks, stating "It turns out that to make grass sounds you don't actually walk on grass and record it, because grass sounds like nothing. What you want to do is get a VHS, break it apart, and just lightly touch the tape." According to Rosenfeld, his favorite sound to design for the game was the hisses of spiders. He elaborates, "I like the spiders. Recording that was a whole day of me researching what a spider sounds like. Turns out, there are spiders that make little screeching sounds, so I think I got this recording of a fire hose, put it in a sampler, and just pitched it around until it sounded like a weird spider was talking to you." Many of the sound design decisions by Rosenfeld were done accidentally or spontaneously. The creeper notably lacks any specific noises apart from a loud fuse-like sound when about to explode; Rosenfeld later recalled "That was just a complete accident by Markus and me [sic]. We just put in a placeholder sound of burning a matchstick. It seemed to work hilariously well, so we kept it." On other sounds, such as those of the zombie, Rosenfeld remarked, "I actually never wanted the zombies so scary. I intentionally made them sound comical. It's nice to hear that they work so well [...]." Rosenfeld remarked that the sound engine was "terrible" to work with, remembering "If you had two song files at once, it [the game engine] would actually crash. There were so many more weird glitches like that the guys never really fixed because they were too busy with the actual game and not the sound engine." The background music in Minecraft consists of instrumental ambient music. To compose the music of Minecraft, Rosenfeld used the package from Ableton Live, along with several additional plug-ins. Speaking on them, Rosenfeld said "They can be pretty much everything from an effect to an entire orchestra. Additionally, I've got some synthesizers that are attached to the computer. Like a Moog Voyager, Dave Smith Prophet 08 and a Virus TI." On 4 March 2011, Rosenfeld released a soundtrack titled Minecraft – Volume Alpha; it includes most of the tracks featured in Minecraft, as well as other music not featured in the game. Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku chose the music in Minecraft as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011. On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second official soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Beta, which included the music that was added in a 2013 "Music Update" for the game. A physical release of Volume Alpha, consisting of CDs, black vinyl, and limited-edition transparent green vinyl LPs, was issued by indie electronic label Ghostly International on 21 August 2015. On 14 August 2020, Ghostly released Volume Beta on CD and vinyl, with alternate color LPs and lenticular cover pressings released in limited quantities. The final update Rosenfeld worked on was 2018's 1.13 Update Aquatic. His music remained the only music in the game until 2020's "Nether Update", introducing pieces from Lena Raine. Since then, other composers have made contributions, including Kumi Tanioka, Samuel Åberg, Aaron Cherof, and Amos Roddy, with Raine remaining as the new primary composer. Ownership of all music besides Rosenfeld's independently released albums has been retained by Microsoft, with their label publishing all of the other artists' releases. Gareth Coker also composed some of the music for the game's mini games from the Legacy Console editions. Rosenfeld had stated his intent to create a third album of music for the game in a 2015 interview with Fact, and confirmed its existence in a 2017 tweet, stating that his work on the record as of then had tallied up to be longer than the previous two albums combined, which in total clocks in at over 3 hours and 18 minutes. However, due to licensing issues with Microsoft, the third volume has since not seen release. On 8 January 2021, Rosenfeld was asked in an interview with Anthony Fantano whether or not there was still a third volume of his music intended for release. Rosenfeld responded, saying, "I have something—I consider it finished—but things have become complicated, especially as Minecraft is now a big property, so I don't know." Reception Minecraft has received critical acclaim, with praise for the creative freedom it grants players in-game, as well as the ease of enabling emergent gameplay. Critics have expressed enjoyment in Minecraft's complex crafting system, commenting that it is an important aspect of the game's open-ended gameplay. Most publications were impressed by the game's "blocky" graphics, with IGN describing them as "instantly memorable". Reviewers also liked the game's adventure elements, noting that the game creates a good balance between exploring and building. The game's multiplayer feature has been generally received favorably, with IGN commenting that "adventuring is always better with friends". Jaz McDougall of PC Gamer said Minecraft is "intuitively interesting and contagiously fun, with an unparalleled scope for creativity and memorable experiences". It has been regarded as having introduced millions of children to the digital world, insofar as its basic game mechanics are logically analogous to computer commands. IGN was disappointed about the troublesome steps needed to set up multiplayer servers, calling it a "hassle". Critics also said that visual glitches occur periodically. Despite its release out of beta in 2011, GameSpot said the game had an "unfinished feel", adding that some game elements seem "incomplete or thrown together in haste". A review of the alpha version, by Scott Munro of the Daily Record, called it "already something special" and urged readers to buy it. Jim Rossignol of Rock Paper Shotgun also recommended the alpha of the game, calling it "a kind of generative 8-bit Lego Stalker". On 17 September 2010, gaming webcomic Penny Arcade began a series of comics and news posts about the addictiveness of the game. The Xbox 360 version was generally received positively by critics, but did not receive as much praise as the PC version. Although reviewers were disappointed by the lack of features such as mod support and content from the PC version, they acclaimed the port's addition of a tutorial and in-game tips and crafting recipes, saying that they make the game more user-friendly. The Xbox One Edition was one of the best received ports, being praised for its relatively large worlds. The PlayStation 3 Edition also received generally favorable reviews, being compared to the Xbox 360 Edition and praised for its well-adapted controls. The PlayStation 4 edition was the best received port to date, being praised for having 36 times larger worlds than the PlayStation 3 edition and described as nearly identical to the Xbox One edition. The PlayStation Vita Edition received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for its technical limitations. The Wii U version received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for a lack of GamePad integration. The 3DS version received mixed reviews, being criticized for its high price, technical issues, and lack of cross-platform play. The Nintendo Switch Edition received fairly positive reviews from critics, being praised, like other modern ports, for its relatively larger worlds. Minecraft: Pocket Edition initially received mixed reviews from critics. Although reviewers appreciated the game's intuitive controls, they were disappointed by the lack of content. The inability to collect resources and craft items, as well as the limited types of blocks and lack of hostile mobs, were especially criticized. After updates added more content, Pocket Edition started receiving more positive reviews. Reviewers complimented the controls and the graphics, but still noted a lack of content. Minecraft surpassed over a million purchases less than a month after entering its beta phase in early 2011. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth, and various unpaid references in popular media such as the Penny Arcade webcomic. By April 2011, Persson estimated that Minecraft had made €23 million (US$33 million) in revenue, with 800,000 sales of the alpha version of the game, and over 1 million sales of the beta version. In November 2011, prior to the game's full release, Minecraft beta surpassed 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. By March 2012, Minecraft had become the 6th best-selling PC game of all time. As of 10 October 2014[update], the game had sold 17 million copies on PC, becoming the best-selling PC game of all time. On 25 February 2014, the game reached 100 million registered users. By May 2019, 180 million copies had been sold across all platforms, making it the single best-selling video game of all time. The free-to-play Minecraft China version had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. By 2023, the game had sold over 300 million copies. As of April 2025, Minecraft has sold over 350 million copies. The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft became profitable within the first day of the game's release in 2012, when the game broke the Xbox Live sales records with 400,000 players online. Within a week of being on the Xbox Live Marketplace, Minecraft sold a million copies. GameSpot announced in December 2012 that Minecraft sold over 4.48 million copies since the game debuted on Xbox Live Arcade in May 2012. In 2012, Minecraft was the most purchased title on Xbox Live Arcade; it was also the fourth most played title on Xbox Live based on average unique users per day. As of 4 April 2014[update], the Xbox 360 version has sold 12 million copies. In addition, Minecraft: Pocket Edition has reached a figure of 21 million in sales. The PlayStation 3 Edition sold one million copies in five weeks. The release of the game's PlayStation Vita version boosted Minecraft sales by 79%, outselling both PS3 and PS4 debut releases and becoming the largest Minecraft launch on a PlayStation console. The PS Vita version sold 100,000 digital copies in Japan within the first two months of release, according to an announcement by SCE Japan Asia. By January 2015, 500,000 digital copies of Minecraft were sold in Japan across all PlayStation platforms, with a surge in primary school children purchasing the PS Vita version. As of 2022, the Vita version has sold over 1.65 million physical copies in Japan, making it the best-selling Vita game in the country. Minecraft helped improve Microsoft's total first-party revenue by $63 million for the 2015 second quarter. The game, including all of its versions, had over 112 million monthly active players by September 2019. On its 11th anniversary in May 2020, the company announced that Minecraft had reached over 200 million copies sold across platforms with over 126 million monthly active players. By April 2021, the number of active monthly users had climbed to 140 million. In July 2010, PC Gamer listed Minecraft as the fourth-best game to play at work. In December of that year, Good Game selected Minecraft as their choice for Best Downloadable Game of 2010, Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it the "game of the year". Indie DB awarded the game the 2010 Indie of the Year award as chosen by voters, in addition to two out of five Editor's Choice awards for Most Innovative and Best Singleplayer Indie. It was also awarded Game of the Year by PC Gamer UK. The game was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Technical Excellence, and Excellence in Design awards at the March 2011 Independent Games Festival and won the Grand Prize and the community-voted Audience Award. At Game Developers Choice Awards 2011, Minecraft won awards in the categories for Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game and Innovation Award, winning every award for which it was nominated. It also won GameCity's video game arts award. On 5 May 2011, Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that would be displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of The Art of Video Games exhibit that opened on 16 March 2012. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Minecraft won the award for Best Independent Game and was nominated in the Best PC Game category. In 2012, at the British Academy Video Games Awards, Minecraft was nominated in the GAME Award of 2011 category and Persson received The Special Award. In 2012, Minecraft XBLA was awarded a Golden Joystick Award in the Best Downloadable Game category, and a TIGA Games Industry Award in the Best Arcade Game category. In 2013, it was nominated as the family game of the year at the British Academy Video Games Awards. During the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft for "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year". Minecraft Console Edition won the award for TIGA Game Of The Year in 2014. In 2015, the game placed 6th on USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list. In 2016, Minecraft placed 6th on Time's The 50 Best Video Games of All Time list. Minecraft was nominated for the 2013 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite App, but lost to Temple Run. It was nominated for the 2014 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Video Game, but lost to Just Dance 2014. The game later won the award for the Most Addicting Game at the 2015 Kids' Choice Awards. In addition, the Java Edition was nominated for "Favorite Video Game" at the 2018 Kids' Choice Awards, while the game itself won the "Still Playing" award at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards, as well as the "Favorite Video Game" award at the 2020 Kids' Choice Awards. Minecraft also won "Stream Game of the Year" at inaugural Streamer Awards in 2021. The game later garnered a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award nomination for Favorite Video Game in 2021, and won the same category in 2022 and 2023. At the Golden Joystick Awards 2025, it won the Still Playing Award - PC and Console. Minecraft has been subject to several notable controversies. In June 2014, Mojang announced that it would begin enforcing the portion of Minecraft's end-user license agreement (EULA) which prohibits servers from giving in-game advantages to players in exchange for donations or payments. Spokesperson Owen Hill stated that servers could still require players to pay a fee to access the server and could sell in-game cosmetic items. The change was supported by Persson, citing emails he received from parents of children who had spent hundreds of dollars on servers. The Minecraft community and server owners protested, arguing that the EULA's terms were more broad than Mojang was claiming, that the crackdown would force smaller servers to shut down for financial reasons, and that Mojang was suppressing competition for its own Minecraft Realms subscription service. The controversy contributed to Notch's decision to sell Mojang. In 2020, Mojang announced an eventual change to the Java Edition to require a login from a Microsoft account rather than a Mojang account, the latter of which would be sunsetted. This also required Java Edition players to create Xbox network Gamertags. Mojang defended the move to Microsoft accounts by saying that improved security could be offered, including two-factor authentication, blocking cyberbullies in chat, and improved parental controls. The community responded with intense backlash, citing various technical difficulties encountered in the process and how account migration would be mandatory, even for those who do not play on servers. As of 10 March 2022, Microsoft required that all players migrate in order to maintain access the Java Edition of Minecraft. Mojang announced a deadline of 19 September 2023 for account migration, after which all legacy Mojang accounts became inaccessible and unable to be migrated. In June 2022, Mojang added a player-reporting feature in Java Edition. Players could report other players on multiplayer servers for sending messages prohibited by the Xbox Live Code of Conduct; report categories included profane language,[l] substance abuse, hate speech, threats of violence, and nudity. If a player was found to be in violation of Xbox Community Standards, they would be banned from all servers for a specific period of time or permanently. The update containing the report feature (1.19.1) was released on 27 July 2022. Mojang received substantial backlash and protest from community members, one of the most common complaints being that banned players would be forbidden from joining any server, even private ones. Others took issue to what they saw as Microsoft increasing control over its player base and exercising censorship, leading some to start a hashtag #saveminecraft and dub the version "1.19.84", a reference to the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The "Mob Vote" was an online event organized by Mojang in which the Minecraft community voted between three original mob concepts; initially, the winning mob was to be implemented in a future update, while the losing mobs were scrapped, though after the first mob vote this was changed, and losing mobs would now have a chance to come to the game in the future. The first Mob Vote was held during Minecon Earth 2017 and became an annual event starting with Minecraft Live 2020. The Mob Vote was often criticized for forcing players to choose one mob instead of implementing all three, causing divisions and flaming within the community, and potentially allowing internet bots and Minecraft content creators with large fanbases to conduct vote brigading. The Mob Vote was also blamed for a perceived lack of new content added to Minecraft since Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang in 2014. The 2023 Mob Vote featured three passive mobs—the crab, the penguin, and the armadillo—with voting scheduled to start on 13 October. In response, a Change.org petition was created on 6 October, demanding that Mojang eliminate the Mob Vote and instead implement all three mobs going forward. The petition received approximately 445,000 signatures by 13 October and was joined by calls to boycott the Mob Vote, as well as a partially tongue-in-cheek "revolutionary" propaganda campaign in which sympathizers created anti-Mojang and pro-boycott posters in the vein of real 20th century propaganda posters. Mojang did not release an official response to the boycott, and the Mob Vote otherwise proceeded normally, with the armadillo winning the vote. In September 2024, as part of a blog post detailing their future plans for Minecraft's development, Mojang announced the Mob Vote would be retired. Cultural impact In September 2019, The Guardian classified Minecraft as the best video game of the 21st century to date, and in November 2019, Polygon called it the "most important game of the decade" in its 2010s "decade in review". In June 2020, Minecraft was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Minecraft is recognized as one of the first successful games to use an early access model to draw in sales prior to its full release version to help fund development. As Minecraft helped to bolster indie game development in the early 2010s, it also helped to popularize the use of the early access model in indie game development. Social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit have played a significant role in popularizing Minecraft. Research conducted by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania showed that one-third of Minecraft players learned about the game via Internet videos. In 2010, Minecraft-related videos began to gain influence on YouTube, often made by commentators. The videos usually contain screen-capture footage of the game and voice-overs. Common coverage in the videos includes creations made by players, walkthroughs of various tasks, and parodies of works in popular culture. By May 2012, over four million Minecraft-related YouTube videos had been uploaded. The game would go on to be a prominent fixture within YouTube's gaming scene during the entire 2010s; in 2014, it was the second-most searched term on the entire platform. By 2018, it was still YouTube's biggest game globally. Some popular commentators have received employment at Machinima, a now-defunct gaming video company that owned a highly watched entertainment channel on YouTube. The Yogscast is a British company that regularly produces Minecraft videos; their YouTube channel has attained billions of views, and their panel at Minecon 2011 had the highest attendance. Another well-known YouTube personality is Jordan Maron, known online as CaptainSparklez, who has also created many Minecraft music parodies, including "Revenge", a parody of Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love". Minecraft's popularity on YouTube was described by Polygon as quietly dominant, although in 2019, thanks in part to PewDiePie's playthroughs of the game, Minecraft experienced a visible uptick in popularity on the platform. Longer-running series include Far Lands or Bust, dedicated to reaching the obsolete "Far Lands" glitch by foot on an older version of the game. YouTube announced that on 14 December 2021 that the total amount of Minecraft-related views on the website had exceeded one trillion. Minecraft has been referenced by other video games, such as Torchlight II, Team Fortress 2, Borderlands 2, Choplifter HD, Super Meat Boy, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Binding of Isaac, The Stanley Parable, and FTL: Faster Than Light. Minecraft is officially represented in downloadable content for the crossover fighter Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with Steve as a playable character with a moveset including references to building, crafting, and redstone, alongside an Overworld-themed stage. It was also referenced by electronic music artist Deadmau5 in his performances. The game is also referenced heavily in "Informative Murder Porn", the second episode of the seventeenth season of the animated television series South Park. In 2025, A Minecraft Movie was released. It made $313 million in the box office in the first week, a record-breaking opening for a video game adaptation. Minecraft has been noted as a cultural touchstone for Generation Z, as many of the generation's members played the game at a young age. The possible applications of Minecraft have been discussed extensively, especially in the fields of computer-aided design (CAD) and education. In a panel at Minecon 2011, a Swedish developer discussed the possibility of using the game to redesign public buildings and parks, stating that rendering using Minecraft was much more user-friendly for the community, making it easier to envision the functionality of new buildings and parks. In 2012, a member of the Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab, Cody Sumter, said: "Notch hasn't just built a game. He's tricked 40 million people into learning to use a CAD program." Various software has been developed to allow virtual designs to be printed using professional 3D printers or personal printers such as MakerBot and RepRap. In September 2012, Mojang began the Block by Block project in cooperation with UN Habitat to create real-world environments in Minecraft. The project allows young people who live in those environments to participate in designing the changes they would like to see. Using Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the Minecraft servers and modify their own neighborhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's managing director, called the game "the perfect tool to facilitate this process", adding "The three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat's Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016." Mojang signed Minecraft building community, FyreUK, to help render the environments into Minecraft. The first pilot project began in Kibera, one of Nairobi's informal settlements and is in the planning phase. The Block by Block project is based on an earlier initiative started in October 2011, Mina Kvarter (My Block), which gave young people in Swedish communities a tool to visualize how they wanted to change their part of town. According to Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualize urban planning ideas without necessarily having a training in architecture. The ideas presented by the citizens were a template for political decisions. In April 2014, the Danish Geodata Agency generated all of Denmark in fullscale in Minecraft based on their own geodata. This is possible because Denmark is one of the flattest countries with the highest point at 171 meters (ranking as the country with the 30th smallest elevation span), where the limit in default Minecraft was around 192 meters above in-game sea level when the project was completed. Taking advantage of the game's accessibility where other websites are censored, the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders has used an open Minecraft server to create the Uncensored Library, a repository within the game of journalism by authors from countries (including Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam) who have been censored and arrested, such as Jamal Khashoggi. The neoclassical virtual building was created over about 250 hours by an international team of 24 people. Despite its unpredictable nature, Minecraft speedrunning, where players time themselves from spawning into a new world to reaching The End and defeating the Ender Dragon boss, is popular. Some speedrunners use a combination of mods, external programs, and debug menus, while other runners play the game in a more vanilla or more consistency-oriented way. Minecraft has been used in educational settings through initiatives such as MinecraftEdu, founded in 2011 to make the game affordable and accessible for schools in collaboration with Mojang. MinecraftEdu provided features allowing teachers to monitor student progress, including screenshot submissions as evidence of lesson completion, and by 2012 reported that approximately 250,000 students worldwide had access to the platform. Mojang also developed Minecraft: Education Edition with pre-built lesson plans for up to 30 students in a closed environment. Educators have used Minecraft to teach subjects such as history, language arts, and science through custom-built environments, including reconstructions of historical landmarks and large-scale models of biological structures such as animal cells. The introduction of redstone blocks enabled the construction of functional virtual machines such as a hard drive and an 8-bit computer. Mods have been created to use these mechanics for teaching programming. In 2014, the British Museum announced a project to reproduce its building and exhibits in Minecraft in collaboration with the public. Microsoft and Code.org have offered Minecraft-based tutorials and activities designed to teach programming, reporting by 2018 that more than 85 million children had used their resources. In 2025, the Musée de Minéralogie in Paris held a temporary exhibition titled "Minerals in Minecraft." Following the initial surge in popularity of Minecraft in 2010, other video games were criticised for having various similarities to Minecraft, and some were described as being "clones", often due to a direct inspiration from Minecraft, or a superficial similarity. Examples include Ace of Spades, CastleMiner, CraftWorld, FortressCraft, Terraria, BlockWorld 3D, Total Miner, and Luanti (formerly Minetest). David Frampton, designer of The Blockheads, reported that one failure of his 2D game was the "low resolution pixel art" that too closely resembled the art in Minecraft, which resulted in "some resistance" from fans. A homebrew adaptation of the alpha version of Minecraft for the Nintendo DS, titled DScraft, has been released; it has been noted for its similarity to the original game considering the technical limitations of the system. In response to Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang and their Minecraft IP, various developers announced further clone titles developed specifically for Nintendo's consoles, as they were the only major platforms not to officially receive Minecraft at the time. These clone titles include UCraft (Nexis Games), Cube Life: Island Survival (Cypronia), Discovery (Noowanda), Battleminer (Wobbly Tooth Games), Cube Creator 3D (Big John Games), and Stone Shire (Finger Gun Games). Despite this, the fears of fans were unfounded, with official Minecraft releases on Nintendo consoles eventually resuming. Markus Persson made another similar game, Minicraft, for a Ludum Dare competition in 2011. In 2025, Persson announced through a poll on his X account that he was considering developing a spiritual successor to Minecraft. He later clarified that he was "100% serious", and that he had "basically announced Minecraft 2". Within days, however, Persson cancelled the plans after speaking to his team. In November 2024, artificial intelligence companies Decart and Etched released Oasis, an artificially generated version of Minecraft, as a proof of concept. Every in-game element is completely AI-generated in real time and the model does not store world data, leading to "hallucinations" such as items and blocks appearing that were not there before. In January 2026, indie game developer Unomelon announced that their voxel sandbox game Allumeria would be playable in Steam Next Fest that year. On 10 February, Mojang issued a DMCA takedown of Allumeria on Steam through Valve, alleging the game was infringing on Minecraft's copyright. Some reports suggested that the takedown may have used an automatic AI copyright claiming service. The DMCA was later withdrawn. Minecon was an annual official fan convention dedicated to Minecraft. The first full Minecon was held in November 2011 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The event included the official launch of Minecraft; keynote speeches, including one by Persson; building and costume contests; Minecraft-themed breakout classes; exhibits by leading gaming and Minecraft-related companies; commemorative merchandise; and autograph and picture times with Mojang employees and well-known contributors from the Minecraft community. In 2016, Minecon was held in-person for the last time, with the following years featuring annual "Minecon Earth" livestreams on minecraft.net and YouTube instead. These livestreams, later rebranded to "Minecraft Live", included the mob/biome votes, and announcements of new game updates. In 2025, "Minecraft Live" became a biannual event as part of Minecraft's changing update schedule.[citation needed] Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Interactive_Arts_%26_Sciences] | [TOKENS: 787] |
Contents Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) is an American non-profit organization of video game industry professionals. It organizes the annual Design Innovate Communicate Entertain Summit, better known as D.I.C.E., which includes the presentations of the D.I.C.E. Awards. History Andrew S. Zucker, an attorney in the entertainment industry, founded the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences in 1991 and served as its first president. AIAS co-promoted numerous events with organizations such as the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Directors Guild of America, and Women in Film. Their first awards show program, Cybermania '94, which was hosted by Leslie Nielsen and Jonathan Taylor Thomas, was broadcast on TBS in 1994. While a second show was run in 1995 and was the first awards program to be streamed over the Web, it drew far fewer audiences than the first. Video game industry leaders decided that they wanted to reform AIAS as a non-profit organization for the video game industry. The effort was backed by Peter Main of Nintendo, Tom Kalinske of Sega, and Doug Lowenstein, founder of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), and with funding support from ESA. The AIAS was formally reestablished on November 19, 1996, with Marc Teren as president, soon replaced by game developer Glenn Entis. Initially, in 1998, AIAS' role was to handle the awards, originally known as the Interactive Achievement Awards. These awards were nominated and selected by game developers that are members of the organization themselves, mimicking how the Academy Awards are voted for by its members. Around 2000, the ESA pulled out of funding AIAS, leading AIAS members Richard Hilleman and Lorne Lanning to suggest that AIAS create the D.I.C.E. Summit (short for "Design Innovate Communicate Entertain"), a convention centered around the presentation of the awards to providing funding for the organization. The Summit was aimed at industry executives and lead as a means to provide networking between various companies. The D.I.C.E. Summit launched in 2002 in Las Vegas, Nevada and has been run on an annual basis since. In addition to video games, AIAS saw these summits as a way to connect video games to other entertainment industries. Joseph Olin served as the AIAS president from 2004 to 2010; following his departure, Martin Rae was named president in 2012. Rae opted to implement a number of changes to the Summit, shorting talk times to give more attention to the speakers, and rebranding the awards as the D.I.C.E. Awards for the 2013 summit. Mike Fischer replaced Rae as president in 2016. As of 2017,[update] AIAS's mission is "to promote and advance the worldwide interactive entertainment community, recognize outstanding achievements in the interactive arts and sciences, and host an annual awards show, the DICE Awards, to enhance awareness of games as an interactive art form". D.I.C.E. Summit The D.I.C.E. Summit is an annual multi-day gathering of video game executives held in Las Vegas. Established in 2002 by AIAS, the conference is host to the annual Interactive Achievement Awards, which has since been rebranded as the D.I.C.E. Awards. The conference differs from other conferences in the industry in its emphasis on the business and production end of the industry, with a focus on trends and innovations in video game design. The conference specializes in providing a more intimate, orderly venue for select industry leaders to network. In 2007, a keynote speaker was added to open the event, which had traditionally begun with recreation before the introduction of presentations and panels. Current list of corporate members (as of April 4, 2023): References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.I.C.E._Award_for_Strategy/Simulation_Game_of_the_Year] | [TOKENS: 592] |
Contents D.I.C.E. Award for Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year The D.I.C.E. Award for Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year is an award presented annually by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences during the D.I.C.E. Awards. This award recognizes games "in which user directs or manipulates resources to create a set of conditions that result in success as determined within the confines of the game. These games can offer the user the chance to simulate or to virtually reproduce an experience, real or imaginary, which would require some form of equipment. Strategy games emphasize the planning of tactics rather than the execution". All active creative/technical, business, and affiliate members of the Academy are qualified to vote for this category. Originally, there were separate awards for strategy games and simulation games, which simulate aspects of the real world. The award's most recent winner is The Alters, developed and published by 11 Bit Studios. History Initially the Interactive Achievement Awards had separate awards for Computer Strategy Game of the Year and Computer Simulation Game of the Year. The categories would then be merged into Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year in 2008. There was a tie between Age of Empires and StarCraft for Computer Strategy Game of the Year at the 1st Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. Winners and nominees Multiple nominations and wins Firaxis Games, as a developer, has received the most nominations and has won the most awards; Microsoft and Xbox Game Studios, as a publisher, has received the most nominations and has won the most awards. There are numerous developers with consecutive wins in this category: When there were separate awards for strategy games and simulation games, both Microsoft and Electronic Arts has published winners for both categories in the same year: Microsoft is the only publisher to have back-to-back wins for both strategy and simulation categories in consecutive years (2000 and 2001). Since the merger of strategy and simulation genres into one category in 2008, four different publishers has garnered consecutive wins: Sega has published the most nominees without a win. All of the Sid Meier games, including the Civilization franchise, have received the most nominations for strategy/simulation games, while the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise has received the most awards for strategy/simulation games. There have been numerous games with multiple nominations, mostly for expansion packs: Age of Empires II, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and The Sims are the only games with back-to-back wins albeit with expansion packs, whereas the Command & Conquer franchise has back-to-back wins (non-expansion) with Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars in 2008, and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 in 2009. The Sims franchise has won a third consecutive year for Simulation Game of the Year with The Sims 2 in 2005. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II is the only game that has been nominated three times. Notes References |
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[SOURCE: https://www.fast.ai/posts/2018-08-27-grad-school.html] | [TOKENS: 2473] |
What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD Rachel Thomas August 27, 2018 On this page My newest Ask-A-Data-Scientist post addresses the question of whether to pursue a PhD. You can find my previous Ask-A-Data-Scientist advice columns here. Question: I’m an undergrad student passionate about machine learning, and I feel a bit of pressure to get a PhD. Would it maybe make more sense to go into industry for a couple years and then consider going back to school? Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated. Conversations around whether or not to do a PhD often suffer from selection bias: people considering PhDs ask successful people with PhDs for their advice. On the other side, there are many people doing fascinating and cutting-edge work without PhDs, who are less likely to be asked for advice on the topic. Other important factors, such as the disproportionately high rate of depression amongst graduate students or the opportunity cost of doing a PhD, are rarely discussed. As someone with a math PhD, I regret spending so many years over-focusing on a narrow area, while neglecting many other important skills. Once I joined the workforce, I felt like I was playing catch-up on many crucial skills and experiences! Understanding Opportunity Costs I grossly underestimated how much I could learn by working in industry. I believed the falsehood that the best way to always keep learning is to stay in academia, and I didn’t have a good grasp on the opportunity costs of doing a PhD. My undergraduate experience had been magical, and I had always both excelled at and enjoyed being in school. The idea of getting paid to be in school sounded like a sweet deal! As I wrote about here, I later realized that my traditional academic success was actually a weakness, as I’d learned how to solve problems I was given, but not how to how to find and scope interesting problems on my own. I think for many top students (my former self included), getting a PhD feels like a “safe” option: it’s a well-defined path to doing something considered prestigious. But this can just be a way of postponing many necessary personal milestones: of learning to define and set your own goals apart from a structured academic system and of connecting more deeply with your own intrinsic motivations and values. At the time, I felt like I was learning a lot during my PhD: taking advanced courses, reading papers, conducting research, regularly giving presentations, organizing two conferences in my field, coordinating a student-run graduate course, serving as an elected representative for grad students in my department, and writing a thesis. In hindsight, all of these were part of a narrower range of skills than I realized, and many of these skills were less transferable than I’d hoped. For instance, academic writing is very different from the type of writing I do through my blogging (which reaches a much wider audience!), and understanding academic politics was very different from startup politics, since the structure and incentives are so different. I finished my PhD and started my first full-time adult job around the time I turned 27 (Note: I was earning a stipend through various research and teaching fellowships in graduate school, but that was different.) I had a lot to learn about working in industry and major gaps in my practical skills. Despite taking 2 years of C++ in high school, minoring in CS in college, and doing a few programming projects during my math PhD, I had focused on the more theoretical parts of computer science and was lacking in many practical computer skills. In contrast, my fast.ai co-founder Jeremy Howard started his first full-time adult job at 18 as a McKinsey consultant, and by the same age when I was first entering the workforce, Jeremy had been working full-time for nearly a decade and had founded two start-ups that are still operational today. I could have learned so many other things working in tech during the time I instead did my PhD. To be clear, life is not a race. You can switch into tech and learn new skills at any age. The tech industry is deeply ageist, and the glorification of young founders is a harmful myth. However, I am never again going to have the energy I did in my early 20s (I eat healthy, lift heavy weights, and prioritize sleep, but I don’t feel the same), and I regret spending that time and energy being miserable while over-focusing on a narrow subject area and neglecting a lot of other skills. You don’t need a PhD Just off the top of my head, I thought of the following people who don’t have PhDs and who are doing interesting, cutting-edge work in deep learning (this list is incomplete and there are tons of others): In all the jobs I’ve had, including a couple that technically “required” a PhD, I had teammates without graduate degrees. My teammates without PhDs were often more productive and helpful then those of us with PhDs (perhaps because they had more practical experience). Of course, there are plenty of people with PhDs who do fascinating and valuable work, such as Arvind Narayanan, Latanya Sweeney, Timnit Gebru, Moustapha Cisse, Yann Dauphin, Shakir Mohamed, Leslie Smith, Erin LeDell, Andrea Frome, and others. I deeply admire everyone I’ve listed, and I am not arguing that a PhD is never useful or never works out well. Depression, Isolation, & Mental Health Problems among Grad Students 67 percent of graduate students said they had felt hopeless at least once in the last year; 54 percent felt so depressed they had a hard time functioning; and nearly 10 percent said they had considered suicide, a 2004 survey found. By comparison, an estimated 9.5 percent of American adults suffer from depressive disorders in a given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, according to research on UC Berkeley students. Grad school is not all fun and personal enrichment for many people. It can involve poverty-level wages, uncertain employment conditions, contradictory demands by supervisors, irrelevant research projects, and disrespectful treatment by both the tenured faculty members and the undergraduates (both of whom behave, all too often, as management and customers.) Grad school is a confidence-killing daily assault of petty degradations. All of this is compounded by the fear that it is all for nothing; that you are a useful fool, one professor wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education, in an article that was about humanities students in particular, yet applies to many STEM students as well. I hardly know anyone who was a grad student in the last decade who is not deeply embittered. Because of my columns on this site, a few people have told me how their graduate-school years coincided with long periods of suicidal ideation. More commonly, grad students suffer from untreated chronic ailments such as weight fluctuation, fatigue, headache, stomach pain, nervousness, and alcoholism. While sexism and harassment contributed to my own negative experience in graduate school, many of my male classmates were miserable as well, due to isolation, bullying, or humiliating treatment from professors, and an exploitative system dominated by egos, rigid hierarchy, and obsession with prestige. One of the authors of a comprehensive report from the National Academy of Sciences stated, “Scientists have equated rigor and being critical with being cruel.” Sexism and Racism in Academia In science, engineering, & medicine, between 20%-50% of female students and more than 50% of women faculty have experienced harassment, according to a National Academy of Sciences report. In interviews with 60 women of Color who work in STEM research, 100% of them had experienced discrimination, and the particular negative stereotypes they faced differed depending on their race. Credentials can be more important for people from underrepresented groups, who frequently face a higher level of scrutiny due to unconscious bias (particularly if they are self-taught). While underrepresented minorities may need the credentials more, unfortunately, due to the sexism and racism in higher education, they also may face worse environments in trying to obtain those credentials. I don’t have an answer for this, but wanted to note the tension. Piper Harron, a Black woman who earned her PhD in math at Princeton, wrote a passage in her thesis, Respected research math is dominated by men of a certain attitude. Even allowing for individual variation, there is still a tendency towards an oppressive atmosphere, which is carefully maintained and even championed by those who find it conducive to success. As any good grad student would do, I tried to fit in, mathematically. I absorbed the atmosphere and took attitudes to heart. I was miserable, and on the verge of failure. The problem was not individuals, but a system of self-preservation that, from the outside, feels like a long string of betrayals, some big, some small, perpetrated by your only support system. Toxic Graduate School is Worse than Other Toxic Jobs I consider my time in graduate school as one of the two most toxic environments I’ve been in. While most of the advice I gave for coping with toxic jobs applies to toxic graduate school as well, there is one key distinction: it is much, much harder to switch graduate programs than it is to switch jobs. This makes the power difference between student and professor much greater than the power difference between an employee and boss in the tech industry (which thus means there is greater potential for abuse or exploitation). I know people who have switched advisors or even switched programs, and yes, this can set you back years. However, the costs (in terms of mental and physical health, as well as opportunity costs) of staying in a toxic program is very high, and I know people who have spent years recovering from graduate school. It becomes even more complex if you are an immigrant on a student visa and have to consider visa/residency issues. There is not an easy solution for toxic graduate school situations. Higher Education is Changing The only situation where you definitely need a PhD is to become a professor. However, higher education is changing a lot: the shift to more adjuncts, the overproduction of PhDs, severe budget cuts to research funding in the USA, an increasing number of schools laying off tenured faculty, having to make repeated major moves for a series of post-docs, and unsustainable levels of student loan debt amongst undergraduates. I’m not sure what the future holds for higher education, but I think it will be different than the past (and this played a significant role in my own change of career goals). I feel skeptical now when I hear undergraduates (including my younger self) say that they are certain they want to become professors, as it can be hard coming straight from undergraduate to understand the huge breadth and depth of career options that are out there, even if they have had a few internships or part-time jobs. Also, at that point, many students have primarily been surrounded by professors and students. Coding bootcamps and MOOCs such as Coursera were not invented until I was well into my transition into tech, but both can be useful and are having a big impact on education. I’ve taken and benefitted from a number of online courses, and I would have benefitted from a coding bootcamp if they’d existed 10 or 15 years ago. In the past few years, I’ve worked both as an instructor for an in-person bootcamp and been a co-founder in building fast.ai’s MOOCs, which include Practical Deep Learning for Coders and Computational Linear Algebra. I’ve seen how powerful and useful these new educational formats can be when done well (there are also plenty of useless or sketchy bootcamps and MOOCs out there as well, so do your research). Further Reading/Watching You may be interested in some of my previous posts and talks on related topics: When considering a PhD, it is important to carefully weigh the opportunity costs and risks, as well as to consider the experiences of a variety of people: those that have found success without PhDs, the many who have had negative graduate school experiences, and those that have succeeded following a traditional academic path. |
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